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Author: Spencer C. Tucker

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The Civil War Naval Encyclopedia

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The Civil War Naval Encyclopedia VOLUME ONE: A–M

Dr. Spencer C. Tucker Editor

Dr. Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr. Associate Editor

William E. White III Assistant Editor

© Copyright 2011 by ABC-CLIO, LLC All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The Civil War naval encyclopedia / [edited by] Spencer C.Tucker. â•…â•…â•… p. cm. â•… Includes bibliographical references and index. â•… ISBN 978-1-59884-338-5 (hard copy : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-1-59884-339-2 (ebook) â•‡ 1. United States—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Naval operations—Encyclopedias.â•… I. Tucker, Spencer, 1937– â•… E591.C53â•… 2011 â•… 973.7003—dc22 2010036961 ISBN: 978-1-59884-338-5 EISBN: 978-1-59884-339-2 15â•‡ 14â•‡ 13â•‡ 12â•‡ 11â•…â•… 1â•‡ 2â•‡ 3â•‡ 4â•‡ 5 This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook. Visit www.abc-clio.com for details. ABC-CLIO, LLC 130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911 Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911 This book is printed on acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America

For Whit and Wiley, who at a young age have expressed interest in the sea and naval history

About the Editor

Spencer C. Tucker, PhD, graduated from the Virginia Military Institute and was a Fulbright scholar in France. He was a U.S. Army captain and intelligence analyst in the Pentagon during the Vietnam War and then taught for 30 years at Texas Christian University before returning to his alma mater for 6 years as the holder of the John Biggs Chair of Military History. He retired from teaching in 2003. He is now Senior Fellow of Military History at ABC-CLIO. Dr. Tucker has written or edited 36 books and encyclopedias, including ABC-CLIO’s award-winning The Encyclopedia of the Cold War and The Encyclopedia of the Arab-Israeli Conflict as well as the comprehensive A Global Chronology of Conflict.

Contents

VOLUME ONE List of Entries, ix List of Maps, xvii Preface, xix General Maps, xxi The Civil War at Sea: Overview, xxv Entries A–M, 1 Categorical Index, CI-1 Index, I-1 VOLUME TWO List of Entries, ix List of Maps, xvii General Maps, xviii Entries N–Y, 443 Chronology of the Naval Civil War, 1860–1865, 771 Glossary of Naval Terms, 803 Bibliography, 813 List of Editors and Contributors, 827 Categorical Index, CI-1 Index, I-1

vii


List of Entries

VOLUME ONE

Bache, Alexander Dallas

Adams, Charles Francis, Sr.

Bache, George Mifflin

Adams, Henry A.

Bailey, Theodorus

African American Sailors

Balloons

Alabama, CSS

Baltic, CSS

Alabama Claims

Bancroft, George

Alabama vs. Hatteras

Barney, Joseph Nicholson

Alabama vs. Kearsarge

Baron de Kalb, USS

Albemarle, CSS

Barron, Samuel

Albemarle, CSS, Destruction of

Baton Rouge, Battle of

Albemarle Sound

Bell, Charles Heyer

Albemarle Sound, Battle of

Bell, Henry Haywood

Alden, James, Jr. Alligator, USS

Belmont, Battle of

Amphibious Warfare

Benton, USS

Anaconda Strategy

Black Hawk, USS

Anderson, Joseph Reid

Blake, George Smith

Arkansas, CSS

Blockade Board

Arkansas, CSS, Union Attempts to Destroy

Blockade of the Confederacy

Arkansas River

Bormann Fuze

Blockade-Runners

Armstrong, James

Boston Navy Yard

Armstrong, James F.

Breese, Samuel Livingston

Artillery Projectiles, Naval

Bridge, Horatio

Atlanta, CSS

Brooke, John Mercer

Atlantic Blockading Squadron ix

x |â•‡ List of Entries

Brooke Guns

Cottonclads

Brooklyn, USS

Coxetter, Louis Mitchell

Brooklyn Navy Yard

Craven, Thomas Tingey

Brown, Isaac Newton

Craven, Tunis Augustus Macdonough

Buchanan, Franklin

Cumberland River

Bulloch, James Dunwody

Cushing, William Barker

Butt, Walter Raleigh

Dahlgren, John Adolph Bernard

Cairo, USS

Dahlgren Boat Howitzers

Cairo-class River Ironclads

Dahlgren Guns

Cairo Naval Station

Davids, CSS

Carondelet, USS

Davidson, Hunter

Carter, Jonathan H.

Davis, Charles Henry

Carter, Samuel Powhatan

Davis, Jefferson Finis

Charleston, South Carolina

Declaration of Paris

Charleston, South Carolina, CSA Navy Attack on U.S. Navy Blockaders

Dewey, George

Charleston, South Carolina, Du Pont’s Attack on

Discipline, Naval

Charlotte Navy Yard Chickamauga, CSS Chickasaw Bluffs, Battle of Cincinnati, USS City Point, Virginia Coal Torpedo Coast Survey, U.S.

Dictator, USS Dornin, Thomas Aloysius Drayton, Percival Drewry’s Bluff, First Battle of Dunderberg, USS Dunn’s Bayou, Engagement at Du Pont, Samuel Francis Dutch Gap, Battle of

Collins, Napoleon

Eads, James Buchanan

Colt, Samuel

Eagle, Henry

Colt Navy Revolver

East Gulf Blockading Squadron

Columbus Navy Yard

Eastport, USS

Commerce Raiding, Confederate

Elizabeth City, Battle of

Conestoga, USS

Ellet, Alfred Washington

Cooke, James Wallace

Ellet, Charles, Jr. Enchantress Affair

List of Entriesâ•‡ | xi

Engle, Frederick

Fort Sumter, Union Attacks on

Ericsson, John Essex, USS

Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, Relief Efforts and Beginning of the Civil War

Farragut, David Glasgow

Fort Warren, Massachusetts

Farrand, Ebenezer

Fox, Gustavus Vasa

Fauntleroy, Charles Magill Fingal, CSS Fitch, Le Roy Floating Battery Florida, CSS Flotilla Food and Drink aboard Ship Foote, Andrew Hull Forest Rose, USS Forrest, French Fort Anderson and Wilmington, North Carolina, Union Operations against

Galena, USS Galveston, Battle of Galveston, Texas Galveston, Texas, Union Capture of Georgia, CSS, Commerce Raider Georgia, CSS, Ironclad Floating Battery Glassell, William T. Glendy, William Marshall Godon, Sylvanus William Goldsborough, John Rodgers Goldsborough, Louis Malesherbes

Fort Donelson, Battle of

Grand Gulf, Battle of

Fort Fisher Campaign

Grand Gulf, Mississippi, Union Shelling of

Fort Harrison and Chaffin’s Bluff, Battle of Fort Henry, Battle of Fort Hindman, Battle of Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s Run Past Fort McAllister, Georgia, Union Attacks on

Greenville, Mississippi, Union Â�Operations in the Vicinity of Gregory, Francis Hoyt Guerre de Course Gulf Blockading Squadron Gulf of Mexico

Fort Monroe, Virginia

Gunner’s Tools

Fort Morgan, Alabama

Gwin, William

Fort Pickens, Florida

Hampton Roads, Battle of

Fort Pillow, Tennessee

Hampton Roads, Virginia

Fort Sumter, South Carolina

Harriet Lane, USS

xii |â•‡ List of Entries

Hart, John Elliott Hartford, USS Harwood, Andrew Allen Hatteras Inlet, Union Assault on Haynes’ Bluff, Mississippi, Union Demonstration at Head of Passes, Battle of Hitchcock, Robert Bradley H. L. Hunley, CSS Hoff, Henry Kuhn Hoge, Francis Lyell Hollins, George Nichols Horwitz, Phineas Jonathan Housatonic, USS Hulk Hull, Joseph Bartine Hunt, Timothy Atwater

Kilty, Augustus H. Laird Rams Lanman, Joseph Lardner, James Lawrence Lavallette, Elie Augustus Frederick Lee, Samuel Phillips Lee, Sidney Smith Lenthall, John Letters of Marque and Reprisal Lexington, USS Lincoln, Abraham Livingston, John William Lockwood, Henry Hayes Louisiana, CSS Louisville, USS Loyall, Benjamin Pollard

Ingraham, Duncan Nathaniel

Lynch, William Francis

Iron and Steel Manufacture, Impact on Ship Construction

Maffitt, John Newland

Ironclad Board, U.S. Navy Ironclads, Confederate Ironclads, Union Isherwood, Benjamin Franklin Island Number 10, Battle of

Mahan, Alfred Thayer Mallory, Stephen Russell Manassas, CSS Mare Island Navy Yard Marine Corps, CSA Marine Corps, U.S.

James River

Marston, John

James River Squadron, CSA

Mason, James Murray

Johnston, James D.

Maury, Matthew Fontaine

Jones, Catesby ap Roger

McCauley, Charles Stewart

Kearsarge, USS

McKean, William Wister

Kell, John McIntosh

Medal of Honor, U.S. Navy

Keokuk, USS

Medicine, Naval

List of Entriesâ•‡ | xiii

Memphis, First Battle of

VOLUME TWO

Mercer, Samuel

Nashville, CSS, Cruiser

Mervine, William

Nashville, CSS, Ironclad

Michigan, USS

Naval Academy, Confederate

Minnesota, USS

Naval Academy, United States

Mississippi, CSS

Naval Brigade

Mississippi, USS

Naval Efficiency Board

Mississippi Marine Brigade

Naval Gunnery

Mississippi River

Naval Investigating Board, Confederate Congress

Mississippi River Defense Fleet Mississippi Sound Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy Missouri, CSS Missouri River Missroon, John Stoney Mitchell, John Kirkwood Mobile, Alabama

Naval Ordnance Navy, CSA Navy, U.S. Nelson, William Neosho and Osage, USS Neuse, CSS New Bern, North Carolina, Capture of

Mobile, Siege of

New Bern, North Carolina, Confederate Raid on

Mobile Bay

New Ironsides, USS

Mobile Bay, Battle of Monitor, USS

New Ironsides, USS, Attack on by CSS David

Monitor Mania

New Orleans, Louisiana

Montauk, USS

New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of

Montgomery, John Berrien Morris, Henry W. Morris Island, South Carolina, Union Operations against Mortar Boats Mortars Mosquito Fleet Mound City, USS Mound City Naval Station

Newport News, Virginia Nicholson, William Carmichael Norfolk Navy Yard North Atlantic Blockading Squadron Officers and Seamen in the U.S. and Confederate Navies Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies Ohio River

xiv |â•‡ List of Entries

Page, Richard Lucian

Potomac River

Palmer, James Shedden

Powell, Levin Minn

Parker, Foxhall Alexander, Jr.

Powhatan, USS

Parker, William Harwar

Preble, George Henry

Parrott, Robert Parker

Price, Joseph

Parrott Guns

Privateers

Passaic-class Monitors

Prize Cases

Paulding, Hiram

Puritan, USS

Pawnee, USS

Purviance, Hugh Young

Peacemaker, Explosion of Pearson, George Frederick Pendergast, Garrett Jesse Pensacola Navy Yard

Quartermaster Transports Queen of the West, USS Queen of the West vs. Indianola

Permanent Commission

Radford, William

Peterhoff Crisis

Raleigh, CSS

Phelps, Seth Ledyard

Ram Fleet, U.S.

Phelps’s Raid

Ranks, Union and Confederate Navies

Philadelphia Naval Asylum

Rappahannock, CSS

Philadelphia Navy Yard

Read, Charles William

Pittsburg, USS

Receiving Ship

Pittsburg Landing

Red River

Plum Point Bend, Battle of

Red River Campaign

Poor, Charles Henry

Revenue Cutter Service, U.S.

Pope, John, Jr.

Richmond, CSS

Porter, David Dixon

Richmond, USS

Porter, John Luke

Richmond, Virginia

Porter, William David

Ringgold, Cadwalader

Port Hudson, Louisiana, Action at

Riverine Warfare

Port Hudson, Louisiana, Siege of

Roanoke, USS

Port Royal Sound, Battle of

Roanoke Island, North Carolina, Union Capture of

Portsmouth Navy Yard Potomac Flotilla

Rodgers, John Rowan, Stephen Clegg

List of Entriesâ•‡ | xv

Russian Fleet Visits to New York and San Francisco

South Atlantic Blockading Squadron

Sabine Pass, First Battle of

Squadron

Sabine Pass, Second Battle of

Squib, CSS

Sackets Harbor Naval Station

Star of the West, USS

Sands, Benjamin Franklin

Steam Propulsion

Savannah River

Steele’s Bayou Expedition

Savannah River Squadron

Stembel, Roger Nelson

Schneck, James Findlay

Stern-wheeler

Scofield and Markham Gate City Iron Works

Stevens Battery

Screw Propeller

Stone Fleets

Seamen, Recruitment of

Stonewall, CSS

Selfridge, Thomas Oliver, Jr.

Stono River Expedition

Selma Naval Gun Foundry

Strategy, Confederate Naval

Semmes, Raphael

Strategy, Union Naval

Sewell’s Point, Virginia, U.S. Navy Shelling of

Stribling, Cornelius Kincheloe

Sharp, William

Submarine Battery Service

Shelby Iron Company

Submarines

Shenandoah, CSS

Sultana Disaster

Shipboard Life

Sumter, CSS

Ship Island, Mississippi

Susquehanna, USS

Shirk, James W. Shubrick, William Branford Side-wheeler Signal Hill Fire Support Mission Simms, Charles Carroll Slidell, John Smalls, Robert Smith, Joseph Smith, Joseph Bryant Smith, William

Spar Torpedo

Stewart, Charles

Stringham, Silas Horton

Tacony, CSS Tallahassee, CSS Tattnall, Josiah Tecumseh, USS Tender Vessel Tennessee, CSS Tennessee River Thatcher, Henry Knox Timberclads

xvi |â•‡ List of Entries

Tinclads

Waddell, James Iredell

Tonnage

Walke, Henry

Torpedoes

Walker, William Sparhawk

Toucey, Isaac

Ward, James Harmon

Tredegar Iron Works

Washington Navy Yard

Trent Affair

Wassaw Sound, Battle of

Trent’s Reach, Battle of

Webb, CSS

Tucker, John Randolph

Webb, William Augustine

Turner, Thomas

Welles, Gideon

Tyler, USS

West Gulf Blockading Squadron

Underwriter, USS, Confederate Expedition against Van Brunt, Gershom Jaques

White River Expedition, U.S. Navy Wilkes, Charles Wilkinson, John

Vanderbilt, USS

Wilmington, North Carolina, Engagements at

Vicksburg, Mississippi, Mississippi Squadron Passage of

Winslow, John Ancrum

Vicksburg, Mississippi, West Gulf Squadron Passage of

Worden, John Lorimer

Wood, John Taylor

Vicksburg Campaign

Yazoo Pass Expedition

Virginia, CSS

Yazoo River

List of Maps

VOLUME ONE General Maps Civil War, 1861–1862, xxi Civil War, 1863–1865, xxii Federal Naval Blockade, 1861–1865, xxiii Entry Maps Cruise of the Alabama, 1862–1864, 9 Battle of the Alabama and Kearsarge, June 19, 1864, 15 Attack on Fort Fisher, January 12–15, 1865, 206 Battles of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, February 1862, 213 Charleston Harbor and Fort Sumter, April 1861, 239 Battle of the Monitor and Virginia, March 9, 1862, 280 Battle of Mobile Bay, August 5, 1864, 416

VOLUME TWO General Maps Civil War, 1861–1862, xviii Civil War, 1863–1865, xix Federal Naval Blockade, 1861–1865, xx Entry Maps Running the Forts Below New Orleans, April 24, 1862, 478 Attack on Port Royal, November 7, 1861, 535 Red River Campaign, March–May 1864, 572 Siege of Vicksburg, May 18–July 4, 1863, 726

xvii


Preface

In the nearly century and a half since the end of the American Civil War, the fighting on land has held center stage in histories of the conflict. Indeed, a steady flow of biographies of generals, campaigns and battles, and unit histories has fed the continued public appetite for books on the war. Until recent years, books on the naval aspects of the Civil War were few and far between. Even today few Americans know anything about the Civil War at sea, apart from perhaps having heard of the clash in Hampton Roads between USS Monitor and CSS Virginia and the fate of CSS H. L. Hunley off Charleston, South Carolina. Most know nothing of the Union naval blockade of the South or especially the important role played by the U.S. Navy in riverine warfare in the western theater. The result has been a decidedly unbalanced treatment of the war and the belief that the naval effort counted for little. Yet by war’s end, the U.S. Navy, with more than 51,500 men and 671 ships, was the second largest in the world, behind only Great Britain. This state of affairs is changing. In recent years there have been a number of new overviews of the naval war, studies of the command relationships between President Abraham Lincoln and his senior naval officers, biographies of leading figures in the naval war (North as well as South), social histories of the navies, and studies of ships and naval technology. In addition, edited diaries and recollections by participants in the war have also appeared. To my knowledge, this is the first encyclopedia of Civil War naval operations to be published. In it we have included an overview of the conflict; articles on the strategies of both North and South; key bodies of waters and ports; important amphibious campaigns such as that for Vicksburg, on the Red River, and for Fort Fisher; influential battles involving squadrons, such as Plum Point Bend and Memphis; individual ship engagements, including the Virginia versus the Monitor and the Alabama versus the Kearsarge; well-known ships, such as USS Hartford; key individuals, including not only naval officers but also constructors and government officials; and weapons systems, such as the Dahlgren and Brooke guns as well as submarines, spar torpedoes, and the coal torpedo. The encyclopedia was suggested by William Whyte, who holds a master’s degree in history with a specialization in the Civil War (his thesis was on Union riverine xix

xx |â•‡ Preface

warfare in the Mississippi River basin) and is an adjunct professor of history at Northampton Community College in Pennsylvania. Whyte helped develop the overall entry list, handled the assignment of entries to other contributors, wrote a number of entries himself, entered them in the database when written, and then helped me with a final edit of the work. Associate editor Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr., my good right hand with whom I work closely in the ABC-CLIO America at War series of multiÂ� volume encyclopedias on U.S. military history, also suggested entries, wrote a number of entries, and helped me with the editing of all of them. I am most grateful to both individuals, although I accept full responsibility for the finished work. Spencer C. Tucker

General Mapsâ•‡ | xxi

xxii |â•‡ General Maps

General Mapsâ•‡ | xxiii


The Civil War at Sea: Overview

The American Civil War, which began in April 1861, was in many ways the first modern industrial war. Its causes included sectional, cultural, and economic differences, including the issue of slavery. Resources heavily favored the North, which had a population of 22 million people; the South had only 9 million people, more than a third of them slaves. The North had 90 percent of nationwide manufacturing output, which played an important role in the naval sphere during the war. The South, for example, had only one facility, the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, Virginia, capable of producing the heaviest guns and armor plate. Given such strategic imbalances, it is hardly surprising that the war turned out as it did. Following the election of Abraham Lincoln as president, in December 1860 South Carolina seceded from the Union, the first state to do so. The remaining states of the Deep South followed, and in February they formed the Confederate States of America. When Lincoln decided to resupply two isolated U.S. garrisons—at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, and Fort Pickens, Florida—on April 12, 1861, Southerners opened fire on Sumter, beginning the war. Southern leaders adopted a defensive strategy, hoping to tire the North into letting it go, but the North insisted on an end to secession, and this meant that the North would have to invade and conquer the South. At the outset both sides were militarily weak. The North did have a clear advantage at sea, although its widely scattered force of 80 warships was totally inadequate for what lay ahead. On April 19, 1861, Lincoln proclaimed a blockade of the Confederate coastline. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles launched a major construction program, which included ironclads. Washington also purchased civilian ships of all types, many of them steamers, for blockade duty. The distances were vast. From Alexandria, Virginia, to the Rio Grande in Texas, the Southern coastline stretched more than 3,500 miles. And for much of this distance, the outer banks presented a double coastline. There were 189 harbors, river mouths, or indentations to be guarded. The Mississippi River and its tributary rivers counted 3,615 miles, and sounds, bayous, rivers, and inlets along the coasts of the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico constituted another 2,000 miles. The first significant U.S. Navy offensive operation of the war came on August 28–29, 1861, when Flag Officer Silas H. Stringham, commander of the Atlantic xxv

xxvi |â•‡The Civil War at Sea: Overview

Blockading Squadron, led six warships and several transports carrying 900 Union troops to capture Hatteras Inlet, one of several access points to Pamlico Sound, a major staging area for Confederate blockade-runners and privateers. In Union hands, Hatteras had the potential for becoming a staging area for operations against the North Carolina coast. Apart from Charleston, Port Royal in South Carolina was the Confederacy’s best natural harbor on the Atlantic coast. On November 7, 1861, three months after the capture of Hatteras Inlet, U.S. Navy flag officer Samuel F. Du Pont, with 75 ships lifting 12,000 soldiers, took Port Royal, South Carolina. Port Royal provided an ideal base for the Union’s South Atlantic Blockading Squadron and for operations against Charleston. Union pressure gradually tightened, aided by joint naval and military expeditions. By the end of the war the U.S. Navy numbered 671 ships of all types, second in the world in number of warships only to that of Great Britain. The great majority of these were on blockade duty. Penetrating the Union blockade became increasingly difficult, and in the course of the war Union ships took as many as 1,500 blockade-runners. Nonetheless, the quantity of military goods carried by the runners was sufficient to keep the Southern military effort going. In April 1861 on the secession of Virginia, the South gained control of the largest prewar U.S. Navy yard at Gosport (Norfolk) along with 1,200 heavy guns, valuable naval stores, and some vessels. Among the latter was the powerful modern steam frigate Merrimack, which had been scuttled by withdrawing Union forces. The Confederates raised it and began rebuilding it as the ironclad CSS Virginia. Confederate secretary of the navy Stephen R. Mallory, who only had a handful of ships at the onset of fighting, hoped to offset the Northern naval advantage by securing ironclad warships capable of breaking the blockade. He was also a staunch advocate of commerce raiding, the traditional course of action of a weaker naval power against a nation with a vulnerable merchant marine. Mallory hoped to drive up insurance costs, weaken Northern resolve, and force the U.S. Navy to shift warships from blockade duties. During the war no fewer than a dozen Confederate commerce raiders attacked Union merchantmen. CSS Alabama was by far the most successful. Built in Great Britain on secret Confederate order, it took a crew of 66 Union sailors, nearly equal the combined total of the 2 next most successful raiders: CSS Shenandoah with 38 sailors and CSS Florida with 33 sailors. Confederate commerce raiders destroyed some 257 Union merchant ships, or about 5 percent of the total, but they hardly disrupted U.S. trade. Their main effect was to force a substantial number of vessels into permanent foreign registry. More than 700 U.S. ships transferred to British registry. Each side also constructed ironclads. The first were actually built by the Union to aid in securing control of America’s great interior rivers. Thanks to its superior manufacturing resources, the Union built its river fleet quickly. In August 1861 the

The Civil War at Sea: Overviewâ•‡ | xxvii

U.S. Army ordered seven ironclad gunboats. Constructed by James B. Eads, they were actually the first purpose-built ironclad warships in the Western Hemisphere. Tennessee became a focal point for both sides. At the beginning of February 1862 a joint army-navy operation of troops under Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant and a gunboat flotilla under Commodore Andrew H. Foote took the offensive, winning victories at Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. This opened the way for Union forces to take Nashville, the first Confederate state capital in Union hands. The now-outflanked Confederates withdrew from Columbus, Kentucky, clearing the way for Union forces to move down the Mississippi. In March the Confederates evacuated New Madrid, Missouri, and a water-land siege of nearby Island Number 10 began. Large 13-inch mortars joined the Union effort. After taking Island Number 10, Foote’s squadron, the mortar boats in tow, pressed down the Mississippi and laid siege to Fort Pillow. On May 10 Confederate gunboats staged a surprise attack on the Union squadron in the Battle of Plum Point Bend, the war’s first real engagement between naval squadrons. In early June the Confederates abandoned Fort Pillow, and the next day the Union flotilla, now under the command of Commodore Charles Henry Davis, reinforced by a ram fleet under Colonel Charles Ellet, moved south to attack Memphis. The June 5 battle there was the most lopsided Union naval victory of the war and ended Confederate naval power on the Mississippi, which was now open to Vicksburg. Memphis, an important rail and manufacturing center, became a principal Union base. While the northern Mississippi was being secured, Union forces were moving against New Orleans, the Confederacy’s most important seaport. On April 24 Flag Officer David G. Farragut and ships of his West Gulf Blockading Squadron ran past Confederate forts guarding the Mississippi’s mouth and forced the city’s surrender. The loss of New Orleans was a heavy blow to the Confederacy. Vicksburg and Port Hudson were now the only remaining Confederate river strongholds. In the East the Union objective was to secure the Confederate capital of Richmond. President Lincoln preferred a push directly south, but Union general in chief Major General George McClellan planned to utilize Union naval assets, land a large force on the peninsula between the James and York rivers, and advance on Richmond from the east. As he closed on the Confederate capital, a corps guarding Washington would push south to help take Richmond and end the war. The Peninsula Campaign set up history’s first battle between ironclads. On March 8, 1862, CSS Virginia sortied from Norfolk and sank two Union sailing warships: the sloop Cumberland and the frigate Congress. That evening the Union ironclad Monitor arrived, and the next day the two fought an inconclusive battle that left Union forces in control of Hampton Roads but the Confederates secure in the James River. Monitor Mania now swept the North, which built more than 50 warships of the Monitor type. The Confederates countered with casemated vessels along the lines

xxviii |â•‡The Civil War at Sea: Overview

of the Virginia, the best known of these being the Arkansas, Manassas, Atlanta, Nashville, and Tennessee. Also, the Confederacy secretly contracted in Britain for two powerful seagoing ironclad ships. Known as Laird Rams, these turreted vessels were superior to any U.S. Navy warship, but when the war shifted decisively in favor of the Union, the British government seized them. McClellan meanwhile failed to press his numerical advantage and was halted before Richmond by General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Lee then invaded the North but was halted at Antietam (Sharpsburg, Maryland) in September 1862. Union forces again took the offensive but were rebuffed at Fredericksburg in December. Lee also won a brilliant victory against heavy odds at Chancellorsville in May 1863 and then invaded the North for a second time, only to be stopped in July at Gettysburg. In the West, Union forces were attempting to take Vicksburg and free the remainder of the Mississippi. Farragut ran his fleet north past Vicksburg in June 1862 but without effect. Vicksburg, high on bluffs along the east bank at a bend of the river, seemed impervious to naval assault. On July 1, 1862, Farragut linked up with Flag Officer Davis’s squadron off the mouth of the Yazoo River. Two weeks later the powerful Confederate ironclad ram Arkansas sailed from the Yazoo and battered its way through the entire Union fleet to Vicksburg. Farragut then ran south in an unsuccessful effort to destroy the Arkansas before returning to New Orleans. In early August the Arkansas, its engines having given out on its way to Baton Rouge, was scuttled by its own crew. In November and December 1862 General Grant made several attempts to take Vicksburg by amphibious assault. He sent 40,000 men south, supported by the gunboats of Rear Admiral David D. Porter’s Mississippi Squadron. But Grant’s attempt was stymied because of Vicksburg’s defenses. In the West, the year ended with the Confederates still in control of a stretch of the river from Vicksburg south to Port Hudson. That changed in 1863. Union probing attacks in January 1863 against Vicksburg’s increasingly formidable defenses produced little. The city was most vulnerable from the south and east, and Grant now decided on a bold step. In late March, Union ships carried his troops south from Memphis. They disembarked above Vicksburg and marched by land along the west bank to a point south of the Confederate stronghold. At night Porter ran his gunboats and the transports south past Vicksburg’s batteries. They then ferried Grant’s men across the river. Deep in enemy territory, Grant defied instructions and marched inland with 20,000 men, coming in on Vicksburg from the east. After futile assaults Grant settled down to a siege, and on July 4, 1863, Vicksburg surrendered with 30,000 troops. Port Hudson surrendered a few days later, and the entire Mississippi River was at last under Union control. With the Trans-Mississippi West now split off from the rest of the Confederacy, Grant was now free to drive east, splitting the Confederacy north and south.

The Civil War at Sea: Overviewâ•‡ | xxix

At the same time, Union naval commanders worked to tighten the blockade. Charleston, South Carolina, and Wilmington, North Carolina, were the principal points of entry for blockade-runners, and Union strategists believed that they could be closed only by occupation. Charleston was a symbol for both sides, and the Union siege there ended up being the longest campaign of the war. Commander of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron Rear Admiral Du Pont believed that only a joint army-navy descent on Charleston would be successful, but Secretary of the Navy Welles and Assistant Secretary Gustavus V. Fox believed that monitors alone could do the trick, and they insisted that Du Pont proceed. On April 7, 1863, Du Pont sent nine ironclads against Fort Sumter. The Confederates easily beat back the attack, damaging most of Du Pont’s slow-firing monitors and gaining a stunning victory. With Du Pont now understandably pessimistic about future prospects, Welles recalled him. Du Pont’s replacement was Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren. From July to September, Dahlgren kept up a naval bombardment of the Charleston defenses, this time in cooperation with land attacks. Fort Wagner, the principal Union target, repulsed several attacks, with heavy Union losses. Finally, in early September the Confederates abandoned Wagner. Its loss greatly diminished Charleston as a haven for blockade-runners. In the fighting for Charleston the Confederates employed mines (then known as torpedoes), spar torpedoes on small semisubmersible craft known as Davids, and even a submarine to attack the Union blockaders. On February 17, 1864, the Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley sank the screw sloop Housatonic, the first ship sunk by a submarine in the history of warfare. The unstable submarine itself sank shortly thereafter with the loss of its entire crew. On June 19, 1864, one of the most famous 19th-century naval battles occurred— but on the other side of the Atlantic in the English Channel—when CSS Alabama sortied from Cherbourg, France, under the command of Captain Raphael Semmes to engage the U.S. Navy screw steam sloop Kearsarge under Captain John A. Winslow. In the ensuing fight the Alabama succumbed to superior Union gunnery. In October CSS Florida was also taken, in violation of Brazilian neutrality. The Union Navy meanwhile was capturing the remaining Confederate seaboard ports. Early on the morning of August 5, 1864, Rear Admiral Farragut led 18 ships against the heavy Confederate defenses guarding Mobile Bay, Alabama, in the process securing the surrender of the powerful CSS Tennessee. For all practical purposes, this battle ended blockade-running in the Gulf. Along the South Atlantic coast the Confederate ironclad ram Albemarle for months dominated the North Carolina sounds. In April 1864 it sank one Union gunboat and then in May dispersed a squadron of seven Union gunboats. The ram was a considerable threat to Union coastal operations, but in a daring boat expedition up the Roanoke River in October young Lieutenant William B. Cushing sank the Albemarle with a spar torpedo.

xxx |â•‡The Civil War at Sea: Overview

Wilmington, North Carolina, was now the last remaining principal Confederate port for blockade-runners and a principal overseas supply link for Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. With the Albemarle disposed of, aggressive Vice Admiral David D. Porter, commanding the largest number of ships in U.S. Navy history to this point, moved against Wilmington in conjunction with a sea lift of troops. One attempt at the end of December failed, but a second in mid-January was successful. On land, new Union general in chief Grant accompanied his field army as it drove south toward Richmond in 1864. Lee parried Grant’s blows. Grant sought to get in behind Lee at Petersburg south of Richmond, but Lee was too quick for him. The two sides settled down for a long siege. As Grant attempted to take Richmond and destroy Lee, Major General William T. Sherman took Atlanta and then drove east to the sea, cutting a swath of destruction through Georgia to Savannah. He then turned north through the Carolinas to join Grant. Lee then broke out of Petersburg and attempted to escape west. When the Confederates abandoned Richmond, Semmes scuttled the ships of the James River Squadron. Cornered at Appomattox Court House, Lee surrendered on April 9, 1865. General Joseph Johnston soon surrendered in North Carolina. The war on the seas continued for a time, as the Confederate raider Shenandoah did not halt its depredations against Union shipping until the end of June, but by then the war was over. America soon disarmed. The U.S. Army went from 1 million men under arms at Appomattox to only 25,000 by the end of 1866. The navy also dramatically shrank in size. Within a decade and a half after the end of the war, the U.S. Navy was smaller than the navies of every major European power and even behind that of Chile. Spencer C. Tucker References Canney, Donald L. Lincoln’s Navy: The Ships, Men and Organization, 1861–65. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998. Hearn, Chester G. Gray Raiders of the Sea: How Eight Confederate Warships Destroyed the Union’s High Seas Commerce. Camden, ME: International Marine Publishing, 1992. Luraghi, Raimondo. A History of the Confederate Navy. Translated by Paolo D. Coletta. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1996. Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. Still, William N., Jr., ed. The Confederate Navy: The Ships, Men and Organization, 1861–65. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997. Symonds, Craig L. The Civil War at Sea. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2009. Symonds, Craig L. Lincoln and His Admirals. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. Wise, Stephen R. Lifeline of the Confederacy: Blockade Running during the Civil War. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988.



A Adams, Charles Francis, Sr. Birth Date: August 18, 1807 Death Date: November 21, 1886 Attorney, politician, diplomat, and author. Charles Francis Adams Sr. was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on August 18, 1807, into one of the great political families of the early United States. He was the son of President John Quincy Adams, the grandson of founding father and President John Adams, and the father of Charles Francis Adams Jr., a Union Army officer and railroad magnate. Attending Harvard College, from which he graduated in 1825, he read law under the direction of the famed lawyer Daniel Webster and began practicing law in Boston. In 1831 Adams successfully ran for a seat in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. From 1835 to 1840 he served in the state senate. A Whig, Adams was repulsed by slavery but did not adhere to the agenda of hard-line abolitionists who advocated immediate emancipation of African American slaves. The Whig Party split in 1848, and the so-called Free-Soil Whigs nominated Adams as vice president. The split resulted in a Democratic victory that year. Adams later joined the Republican Party, running for the U.S. House of Representatives and serving in that body from 1859 to 1861. In the early winter of 1861, President-elect Abraham Lincoln appointed Adams minister to Great Britain, then the most delicate and important U.S. diplomatic post abroad. Adams arrived in London in May 1861, just weeks after the Civil War had begun. His primary task was to keep the British from granting diplomatic recognition to the Confederacy, which would help prevent the South from forming military alliances with other nations. His task was a difficult one since many in Europe and in Britain, especially among the upper classes, favored the Confederacy, at least early on. Another integral part of his job was to stop the British from selling arms and other war materiel to the Confederacy. In so doing, Adams had to convince the British government that such sales violated Britain’s stated neutrality in the war. As were his father and grandfather, Adams was a natural diplomat and a skilled politician. Thus, it did not take long for him to convince British foreign minister Lord John Russell that the British should discontinue their practice of meeting with Confederate officials. When the Trent Affair erupted in November 1861, Adams managed to convince Secretary of State William Seward to release the two Confederate agents involved in the matter—James Mason and John Slidell—because the Union’s imprisonment of them had turned British opinion further against the United States. 3

4 |â•‡ Adams, Henry A.

Adams was less successful in blocking British sales of warships to the Confederacy. Unable to halt the sale of ships known as commerce raiders—particularly the formidable CSS Alabama, built by John Laird and Sons at Liverpool and launched in May 1862—to the Confederacy, Adams was at last able to convince London not to sell two ironclad Laird Rams to the South. Adams’s strong, steady, and levelheaded diplomacy during the war contributed greatly to keeping Britain, and the rest of Europe, out of the conflict. Adams remained in London until 1868. During the later part of his tenure, he helped compile detailed diplomatic correspondence that would help the United States claim damages from Great Britain caused by commerce raiders sold to the Confederacy. During arbitration to settle the so-called Alabama Claims, Adams emerged from retirement to help represent the United States, the result of which was the 1871 Treaty of Washington. The following year, the United States was awarded $15.5 million in damages. In his retirement, Adams edited the diaries of his father, John Quincy Adams; served as an overseer for Harvard College; and helped to establish the first presidential library in his father’s honor in Quincy, Massachusetts. Adams died on November 21, 1886, in Boston. Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr. See also Alabama, CSS; Alabama Claims; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Laird Rams; Mason, James Murray; Peterhoff Crisis; Slidell, John; Trent Affair; Wilkes, Charles

References Duberman, Martin B. Charles Francis Adams, 1807–1886. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1968. Warren, Gordon H. Fountain of Discontent: The Trent Affair and Freedom of the Seas. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1981.

Adams, Henry A. Birth Date: ca. 1800 Death Date: May 11, 1869 U.S. Navy officer. Henry A. Adams was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, around 1800. He received a midshipman’s warrant on March 14, 1814, and saw service during the War of 1812. He was promoted to lieutenant on January 13, 1825, and to commander on September 8, 1841. During the Mexican-American War, he commanded the sloop John Adams and took part in the expedition up the Coatzacoalcos River in May 1847. Adams was promoted to captain on September 14, 1855. By 1861 Adams had been in the navy for 46 years, including some 21 years in assignments afloat, 10 years in shore assignments, and 14 years awaiting orders in a navy with too many officers for available billets. At the beginning of 1861 Adams was commanding the sailing frigate Sabine in the Home Squadron. He then had 46 years of service, almost half of which

African American Sailorsâ•‡ | 5

had been in assignments afloat. On January 9 Secretary of the Navy Isaac Toucey ordered Adams to Pensacola, Florida, and on January 21 he instructed Adams to remain off that port but not to enter the harbor. He was to stand ready to render all necessary assistance to Fort Pickens should it be attacked but “at all times [to] act strictly on the defensive.” Although there had been an understanding between the administration of President James Buchanan and the seceded state of Florida that no Union troops would be landed at Pickens, in return for which Florida would not attempt to take the fort, the new Abraham Lincoln administration decided to reverse this agreement. Lieutenant General Winfield Scott then issued an order to Adams to land troops at Fort Pickens, but Adams refused on the basis that doing so would violate the earlier (January) agreement and precipitate war, contrary to his orders. Adams justified his actions to Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, who then ordered Adams to obey Scott’s instructions. Following the reinforcement of Fort Pickens, Adams remained off Pensacola as senior officer in the blockade of that Confederate port as part of the new Gulf Blockading Squadron. Adams sailed from Pensacola in the frigate Sabine on June 15, when it was ordered to the Portsmouth Navy Yard for repairs. He was then placed on awaiting orders status. Adams was advanced to commodore on the retired list on July 16, 1862. In November 1862 he was ordered on special duty to Philadelphia where he helped to end problems with coal shipments to the blockading steam warships. Two of his brothers served in the Confederate Army, while his son, Henry A. Adams Jr., graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, in 1855, and had a distinguished record during the Civil War. Adams died in Philadelphia on May 11, 1869. Spencer C. Tucker See also Fort Pickens, Florida; Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, Relief Efforts and Beginning of the Civil War; Gulf Blockading Squadron; Naval Academy, United States; Pensacola Navy Yard; Philadelphia Navy Yard; Portsmouth Navy Yard; Toucey, Isaac; Welles, Gideon

References Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 4. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1896.

African American Sailors African American sailors formed an integral part of U.S. Navy operations during the Civil War. Recent studies suggest that African Americans constituted about 15–16 percent of U.S. Navy total strength during the war, or roughly 19,000 men.

6 |â•‡ African American Sailors

The crew of the double-ender Sassacus-class U.S. Navy gunboat Mendota, 1864. Nine black sailors are scattered throughout, two of them mending sail. (National Archives)

The navy attracted a number of African Americans away from the army because of both higher wages and the expectation of more meaningful employment than the construction work performed by blacks in the Union Army. Also, unlike army units, ship crews were integrated. The navy offered equality in pay and such benefits as prize distributions, promotion, and better living conditions. The navy did, however, restrict African American tasks aboard ship. Black sailors were limited to such positions as servants, cooks, and assistant gunners, or “powder boys.” Later, when all enlisted positions were opened to blacks, they were denied promotion to petty or commissioned officer. Perhaps surprisingly, in contrast to the army, there were remarkably few racial incidents between white and black sailors. When given an opportunity, many African American sailors performed in exemplary fashion. African American sailors John Lawson, Robert Blake, Aaron Anderson, and Joachim Peace earned the Medal of Honor. Robert Smalls, who was born into slavery in Beaufort, South Carolina, became a hero in the North in May 1862 when he, with the assistance of several other slave sailors, sailed the armed Confederate dispatch boat the Planter out of Charleston Harbor, delivering the ship and its cargo to the Union blockading squadron. Some free blacks served in the Confederate Navy. Slaves could do so but only at the pleasure of their masters. The number of African Americans was strictly regulated not to exceed 5 percent of a particular unit. Judson L. Jeffries and Spencer C. Tucker

Alabama, CSSâ•‡ | 7

See also Medal of Honor, U.S. Navy; Ranks, Union and Confederate Navies; Seamen, Recruitment of; Shipboard Life; Smalls, Robert; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron

References Bennett, Michael J. Union Jacks: Yankee Sailors in the Civil War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. Buckley, Gail. American Patriots: The Story of Blacks in the Military from the Revolution to Desert Storm. New York: Crown, 2003. Clinton, Catherine. The Black Soldier, 1492 to the Present. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001. Haskins, Jim. Black, Blue & Gray: African Americans in the Civil War. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998. Mays, Joe H. Black Americans and Their Contributions toward Union Victory in the American Civil War, 1861–1865. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984. Ramold, Steven J. Slaves, Sailors, Citizens: African Americans in the Union Navy. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2002. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Alabama, CSS The most notorious of the Confederate commerce raiders. On August 1, 1861, Confederate purchasing agent James D. Bulloch contracted for a ship with John Laird and Sons at Liverpool. First identified as hull No. 290, it was launched on May 15, 1862, as the Enrica. U.S. diplomats in Britain learned that the ship was intended for the Confederacy and brought pressure on the British government, but Bulloch managed to get it to sea on July 30 before it could be impounded. Rendezvousing with two other British ships, the prospective commerce raider received its ordnance and other supplies at the Portuguese island of Terceira in the Azores. There the new ship’s captain, Raphael Semmes, placed it into commission on August 24 as CSS Alabama. A sleek, three-masted, bark-rigged sloop of oak with a copper hull, the Alabama was probably the finest cruiser of its class in the world at the time. It displaced 1,050 tons and was 220 feet in overall length, 31 feet and 9 inches in beam, and 14 feet in depth of hold. It had a screw propeller that could be detached so that it might make faster speed under sail alone. The Alabama could make 13 knots under steam and sail 10 knots under sail. Semmes characterized it as “a very perfect ship of her class.” A well-built vessel, the Alabama went on to survive several bad storms, including a hurricane. The Alabama boasted a fully equipped machine shop to enable the crew to make all ordinary repairs themselves. The ship could carry coal sufficient for 18 days of continuous steaming, although for obvious reasons Semmes preferred to rely on sail where possible. In fact, all but about a half dozen of the Alabama’s captures

8 |â•‡ Alabama, CSS

The CSS Alabama was the most successful Confederate commerce raider of the war. Commanded by Captain Raphael Semmes, in its two-year career this British-built ship sailed 75,000 miles, took 66 prizes, and sank a Union warship. (Library of Congress)

were taken under sail alone. When it could provision from captured prizes, the Alabama was able to remain at sea a long time. The Alabama mounted eight guns: six 32-pounders in broadside and two pivot-guns (a 7-inch, 110-pounder rifled Blakeley and an 8-inch, 68-pounder smoothbore) amidships. It had a crew of 144, including 24 officers. The Alabama first cruised in the Azores and took a number of prizes. Semmes then sailed for the Newfoundland Banks, where he was also quite successful. Semmes then took the Alabama into the Caribbean, where it intercepted and took the large steamer Ariel. The Alabama then sailed to Galveston, Texas, where on January 11, 1863, Semmes lured out, engaged, and sank the Union side-wheel steamer Hatteras. Semmes then returned the Alabama to the West Indies. It spent several months off Latin America, taking additional prizes there before sailing for South Africa. Learning that the more powerful U.S. Navy steamer Vanderbilt was searching for him, Semmes then headed into the Pacific, hopeful of making serious inroads into the U.S. Orient trade. The Alabama sailed all the way to India but took few prizes; U.S. merchant captains, having been warned of its presence, stayed in port. By now Semmes was experiencing increasing problems with his crew, and the ship was badly in need of an overhaul in a modern shipyard. He headed the commerce raider for France by way of Cape Town. On June 11, 1864, the Alabama dropped anchor at Cherbourg. Since its commissioning the ship had sailed 75,000 miles, taken 66 prizes, and sunk a Union warship. The total value of Union property destroyed by the Alabama was in excess of $4.6 million, 18 times the cost of the ship. Twenty-five Union warships had searched for the Alabama, costing the

Alabama, CSSâ•‡ | 9

10 |â•‡ Alabama Claims

U.S. government more than $7 million. Certainly the exploits of the raider had been a considerable boost to Confederate morale. On June 19, 1864, the French having denied him access to a dry dock and with other Union warships converging on Cherbourg, Semmes took the Alabama out to engage the Union screw sloop Kearsarge. Superior Union gunnery, chain armor aboard the Kearsarge, and weak cannon powder on the Alabama all told. Repeatedly holed, the Alabama sank. The raider suffered 41 casualties: 9 dead and 20 wounded in the actual engagement, and 12 drowned. In 1984 the French Navy located the Alabama’s resting place. The U.S. government had asserted ownership, and in 1989 Congress passed the CSS Alabama Preservation Act to secure the wreck. Spencer C. Tucker See also Adams, Charles Francis, Sr.; Alabama Claims; Alabama vs. Hatteras; Alabama vs. Kearsarge; Bulloch, James Dunwody; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Kearsarge, USS; Laird Rams; Mallory, Stephen Russell; Semmes, Raphael; Winslow, John Ancrum

References Robinson, Charles M., III. Shark of the Confederacy: The Story of the CSS Alabama. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1995. Semmes, Raphael. Memoirs of Service Afloat: During the War between the States. 1869; reprint, Secaucus, NJ: Blue and Grey Press, 1987. Sinclair, Arthur. Two Years on the Alabama. Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1895. Summersell, Charles G. CSS Alabama: Builder, Captain, and Plans. University: University of Alabama Press, 1985. Tucker, Spencer C. Raphael Semmes and the Alabama. Abilene, TX: McWhiney Foundation Press, 1996.

Alabama Claims Claims by the United States against Great Britain for Northern shipping losses suffered at the hands of Confederate raiders during the Civil War. As early as November 1862, the U.S. government had filed claims with the British government regarding these losses. After the war, the issue of London having allowed the fitting out of CSS Alabama and other Confederate cruisers became a major stumbling block in Anglo-American relations. Official Washington believed, rightly or wrongly, that London’s persistent disregard of its own proclamation of neutrality had heartened the South and prolonged the conflict. The powerful chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Charles Sumner, asserted that Britain owed the United States half the cost of the war, or some $2.5 billion. He proposed the solution of taking British Western Hemisphere possessions, including Canada, as compensation.

Alabama vs. Hatterasâ•‡ | 11

Little was done to meet U.S. demands for compensation until 1871, when Germany defeated France in the Franco-Prussian War. With the European balance of power now decisively altered, statesmen in London believed that it might be wise to reach some accommodation with the United States against the possibility of a German drive for world hegemony. London proposed establishment of an arbitration tribunal. Consisting of five representatives—one each from Britain, the United States, Brazil, Switzerland, and Italy—the tribunal met in Geneva beginning in December 1871 to hear and determine “claims growing out of the acts committed” by the Alabama and the other Confederate commerce raiders fitted out in Britain “and generally known as the Alabama claims.” The commission did throw out Washington’s demands for indirect claims, such as expenditures in pursuit of the cruisers, the transfer of U.S. shipping to British registry, and any prolongation of the war. Nevertheless, on September 14, 1872, it awarded the U.S. government $15,500,500. A special U.S. court was then set up to disperse the funds, awarding $9,416,120.25. Ultimately, another claims court made payments beyond those cases covered by the Geneva tribunal. What remained was used to refund premiums paid by shippers for war insurance. Direct losses were indeed paid in full and insurance charges prorated. The Alabama claims settlement has come to be regarded as an important step forward in the peaceful settlement of international disputes and a victory for the rule of law. Spencer C. Tucker See also Adams, Charles Francis, Sr.; Alabama, CSS; Bulloch, James Dunwody; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Semmes, Raphael

References Cook, Adrian. The Alabama Claims: American Politics and Anglo-American Relations, 1865–1872. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1975. Dalzell, George W. The Flight from the Flag: The Continuing Effect of the Civil War upon the American Carrying Trade. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1940.

Alabama vs. Hatteras Event Date: January 11, 1863 Civil War ship engagement off Galveston, Texas, on January 11, 1863. Learning of the Union capture of the Confederate port of Galveston in October 1862 and the expected dispatch of a large Union expeditionary force there, Captain Raphael Semmes of the Confederate commerce raider Alabama formulated a daring plan. He planned to sail to Galveston, reconnoiter, and then stage a night attack to destroy as many of the Union transports as possible, using his ship’s superior speed to escape.

12 |â•‡ Alabama vs. Hatteras

Semmes did not know, however, that the port had been recaptured by the Confederates in the Battle of Galveston on January 1, 1863. When the Alabama arrived off Galveston late on the afternoon of January 11, Semmes saw only five Union warships offshore lobbing shells into the port. Worse, his ship was spotted by Union lookouts when it was about a dozen miles from the shore. Lieutenant Commander Homer C. Blake, of the U.S. Navy’s converted Delaware River side-wheeler steamer Hatteras, set out to investigate the presumed blockaderunner. Semmes, meanwhile, slowly drew the Hatteras along the coast and away from the other ships in the squadron. After it was dark and the two ships were some 20 miles away from the other Union ships, Semmes allowed the Hatteras to approach within hailing distance. Darkness masked the Alabama’s character and armament. The Hatteras was woefully outgunned. It mounted four 32-pounder smoothbore cannon and a single 3.67-inch rifle, while the Alabama had two large pivot-mounted guns, one 7-inch and one 8-inch, as well as six 32-pounders in broadside. Blake hailed to ask the strange ship’s identity and received the response of “Her Majesty’s steamer Petrel.” Blake then demanded the right to send a boarding party to examine the ship’s papers. When the Hatteras’s boat was approximately halfway to the Alabama, Executive Officer First Lieutenant John Kell of the commerce raider shouted out, “This is the Confederate States steamer Alabama .â•¯.â•¯. fire!” The first broadside from the Alabama tore into the Union ship and was decisive. Blake’s ship immediately returned fire, and the engagement became general. Knowing his own ship’s weakness Blake tried to ram, but the Alabama’s superior speed prevented this action. The battle lasted only 13 minutes and was fought at ranges of between 25 and 100 yards. With the Hatteras on fire and sinking, Blake surrendered, and Semmes took off the prisoners. The boat from the Hatteras escaped in the darkness, as the men rowed back to the Union squadron to report what had transpired. Casualties were light. The Hatteras sustained two dead and five wounded to the Alabama’s two wounded. Semmes subsequently released the captured Union crew at Port Royal, Jamaica. The engagement with the Hatteras was testimony to Semmes’s ingenuity and leadership, and it bolstered both his reputation and Confederate morale. It had little impact on Union coastal operations, however. Carl Otis Schuster and Spencer C. Tucker See also Alabama, CSS; Galveston, Battle of; Galveston, Texas, Union Capture of; Semmes, Raphael; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Robinson, Charles, III. CSS Alabama, Shark of the Confederacy. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1995. Semmes, Raphael. Memoirs of Service Afloat: During the War between the States. 1869; reprint, Secaucus, NJ: Blue and Grey Press, 1987. Tucker, Spencer C. Raphael Semmes and the Alabama. Abilene, TX: McWhiney Foundation Press, 1996.

Alabama vs. Kearsargeâ•‡ | 13

Alabama vs. Kearsarge Event Date: June 19, 1864 The engagement between the Confederate commerce raider Alabama and the U.S. Navy steam sloop Kearsarge occurred off the coast of Cherbourg, France, on June 19, 1864. The Alabama had arrived at the French port on June 11. Its captain, Raphael Semmes, hoped that the French government would allow his ship access to the French Navy dry dock for routine repairs. Although French officials refused, Semmes was confident that permission would be forthcoming. The next day news of the Alabama’s arrival reached Captain John A. Winslow of the third-rate screw steam sloop Kearsarge, then on station in the English Channel to monitor the Confederate raiders Georgia and Rappahannock at Calais. Only two months out of a Dutch dockyard and in excellent repair, the Kearsarge arrived at Cherbourg on June 14. Winslow took up station off the breakwater without anchoring. Despite the fact that his ship was in poor condition and slowed by its foul bottom, Semmes opted to do battle; delay would only bring more Union warships. Sunday, June 19, was a perfect day, partly hazy, with a calm sea and light wind from the west. At about 9:30 a.m. the French ironclad Couronne escorted the Alabama out. Several other vessels followed, the most prominent of which was the

Illustration by J. O. Davidson showing the U.S. Navy screw sloop Kearsarge sinking the Confederate commerce raider Alabama off the coast of Cherbourg, France on June 19, 1864. (Library of Congress)

14 |â•‡ Alabama vs. Kearsarge

English yacht Deerhound, owned by John Lancaster. Thousands of people also observed the distant battle from ashore. The two ships were closely matched. The Kearsarge was slightly faster and had a crew complement of 160 men. Its armament consisted of two XI-inch pivotmounted Dahlgren guns and four 32-pounder guns in broadsides. It also mounted one 4.2-inch (30-pounder) Parrott rifled gun. The Alabama had a crew complement of 148 men and mounted a 7-inch Blakeley rifle and a 68-pounder (8-inch) smoothbore, as well as six 32-pounders in broadsides. The Kearsarge’s broadside weight of metal was thus about a quarter greater than the Alabama’s (364 pounds to 274). The Kearsarge had the advantage in medium- to short-range fire, while the Alabama’s large Blakeley gave it the advantage at long range. Semmes expected to use his starboard guns in broadside and shifted one 32-pounder from the port side to strengthen that battery. At about 10:20 a.m. a lookout on the Kearsarge spotted the Alabama, and Winslow ordered his ship off to the northeast to ensure that the battle would occur at sufficient distance to prevent the Alabama from returning to the French shore. When the two ships were about a mile and a quarter apart, Winslow reversed course and headed for the Alabama. He, too, planned to use his starboard battery, so the two ships met each other going in opposite directions. The battle began some six or seven miles offshore and lasted slightly more than one hour. At 10:57 Semmes opened with a broadside at somewhat less than a mile. Not until several minutes later, at about a half mile, did the Kearsarge reply. Winslow ordered a port turn to place his ship in position to rake the Alabama. Semmes veered to port to avoid this, but the maneuver allowed Winslow to close the range. As the Alabama turned back to starboard, the Kearsarge mirrored its movement, and because the Union ship was faster and Winslow sought to narrow the range, the circles grew progressively smaller from one-half to one-quarter of a mile in diameter. Each ship fired its starboard batteries only. As they circled, the ships gradually drifted westward in the current. The Union troops were fortunate in that one Blakeley shell failed to explode. It lodged in the Kearsarge’s wooden sternpost; had the shell gone off, it would have destroyed the ship’s steering. The Kearsarge also enjoyed an advantage in anchor chain strung over the vital middle parts of the ship. An outward sheathing of one-inch wood painted the same color as the rest of the hull concealed this, but French authorities had informed Semmes of its existence. Later Semmes claimed that he was unaware of the chain and that this unfair advantage was the reason for his losing the battle. However, one of his own officers wrote later that he had urged Semmes to install such a chain on the Alabama. As the range lessened, shells from the two XI-inch Dahlgrens tore large holes in the side of the Alabama. During the seventh circle, Semmes was slightly wounded in the hand by a shell fragment. At the beginning of the eighth circle, when the two ships were about 400 yards apart, Semmes saw that his ship was in sinking

Alabama vs. Kearsargeâ•‡ | 15

16 |â•‡ Albemarle, CSS

condition and turned it out of the circle, ordering all sails set in hopes of making the French shore. However, the Alabama was taking on too much water and was completely at the mercy of the Kearsarge. Semmes then ordered the colors hauled down and his men to abandon ship. The Alabama sank, stern first, at 12:24 p.m. Perhaps surprisingly, the Alabama got off many more shots, 370, but only some 30 of them struck home, and these did little damage. Winslow reported that during the battle it had fired 173 shots, of which a high percentage struck. The Alabama’s crew did labor under the disadvantage of weakened powder. There were 41 casualties aboard the Confederate vessel: 9 men dead and 20 wounded in action, and 12 men drowned. The Kearsarge suffered only 3 wounded, 1 of whom later died. The Deerhound, which had been about a mile away during the battle, ran under the stern of the Kearsarge, and Winslow allowed Lancaster to pick up survivors. The Deerhound rescued 42 men, including Semmes, all of whom it took to Southampton. London rejected demands that they be turned over to U.S. authorities. Spencer C. Tucker See also Alabama, CSS; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Georgia, CSS, Commerce Raider; Kearsarge, USS; Rappahannock, CSS; Semmes, Raphael; Winslow, John Ancrum

References Marvel, William. The Alabama and the Kearsarge: The Sailor’s Civil War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996. Robinson, Charles M., III. Shark of the Confederacy: The Story of the CSS Alabama. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1995. Semmes, Raphael. Memoirs of Service Afloat: During the War between the States. 1869; reprint, Secaucus, NJ: Blue and Grey Press, 1987. Sinclair, Arthur. Two Years on the Alabama. Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1895. Tucker, Spencer C. Raphael Semmes and the Alabama. Abilene, TX: McWhiney Foundation Press, 1996.

Albemarle, CSS One of a number of powerful Confederate ironclad casemated rams and certainly one of the most famous Confederate warships. The Albemarle was the first of a two-ship class—the other being the Neuse—constructed by Gilbert Elliot at Edward’s Ferry on the Roanoke River in North Carolina. The smallest of Confederate naval constructor John L. Porter’s coastal defense ironclads, it was laid down in April 1863. The Albemarle was launched in July and commissioned in April 1864. It was some 376 tons, 139 feet between perpendiculars (158 feet overall length), with a beam of 35 feet, 3 inches, and hull depth of 8 feet, 2 inches. Driven by two screws from two steam engines capable of 400 horsepower (hp), the Albemarle could make in excess of four knots. It had a crew complement of

Albemarle, CSSâ•‡ | 17

The U.S. Navy gunboat Sassacus and the Confederate ironclad ram Albemarle battling in the North Carolina Sounds on May 5, 1864. (National Archives)

150 men. Armed with only two 6.4-inch rifled guns, its deck armor was 1-inch iron plate. The casemate sides were all angled 35 degrees and were protected by two layers of 2-inch plate. Damaged at launch, the Albemarle was taken to Halifax, North Carolina, for repairs and completion. The ship was completed in time to participate in a Confederate Army assault led by Brigadier General Robert F. Hoke against the Union blockading base at Plymouth, North Carolina, on April 17, 1864. Early on the morning of April 19, captained by Commander James W. Cooke, the Albemarle attacked and sank one Union gunboat, the Southfield, and drove off another. It now controlled the water approaches to Plymouth and could provide valuable assistance to Confederate Army moves ashore. On the afternoon of May 5, accompanied by the gunboats Bombshell and Cotton Plant, the Albemarle engaged a squadron of seven Union gunboats off the mouth of the Roanoke River. The Bombshell was captured early in the action, and Cotton Plant withdrew up the Roanoke. The Albemarle continued the action alone, disabling the Union gunboat Sassacus. The Albemarle posed a great threat to Union coastal operations because its shallow draft enabled it to escape the larger, deepdraft Union monitors, and it easily outgunned smaller Union coastal craft. For months the Albemarle dominated the North Carolina sounds. Early on the morning of October 28, 1864, U.S. Navy lieutenant William B. Cushing sank the Albemarle at its berth, employing a spar torpedo mounted on

18 |â•‡ Albemarle, CSS, Destruction of

steam launch Picket Boat No. 1. The Albemarle was the only Confederate ship lost to a Union torpedo. Destruction of the Albemarle enabled Union forces to capture Plymouth and gain control of the entire Roanoke River area. It also released Union ships stationed there for other blockade duties. The Union Navy subsequently refloated the ironclad. Towed to Norfolk in April 1865, the hull was repaired, and the ship was taken into the U.S. Navy. It was condemned and sold on October 15, 1867. Spencer C. Tucker See also Albemarle, CSS, Destruction of; Albemarle Sound; Albemarle Sound, Battle of; Cooke, James Wallace; Cushing, William Barker; Ironclads, Confederate; Mallory, Stephen Russell; Neuse, CSS; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Porter, John Luke; Spar Torpedo

References Elliott, Robert G. Ironclads on the Roanoke: Gilbert Elliott’s Albemarle. Shippensburg, PA: White Mane, 1999. Navy Historical Division, Navy Department. Civil War Naval Chronology, 1861–1865. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971. Still, William N., Jr. Iron Afloat: The Story of the Confederate Armorclads. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1985.

Albemarle, CSS, Destruction of Event Date: October 28, 1864 The Confederate ironclad ram Albemarle posed a great threat to Union coastal operations in Albemarle Sound, and the Union Navy was determined to destroy it. With ironclads drawing too much water and wooden gunboats too vulnerable, a boat raid appeared to be the only option. On May 25, 1864, five volunteers went up the Roanoke River in a boat with two 100-pound torpedoes (mines), hoping to place them against the ram’s hull at night. The men were discovered before they could reach their objective, but all managed to escape. In early July, North Atlantic Blockading Squadron commander Rear Admiral Samuel P. Lee met with 21-year-old Lieutenant William B. Cushing and asked him to lead another effort. Cushing proposed several plans, and Lee approved an attack by two launches fitted with spar torpedoes, but sent Cushing to Washington to secure final approval from the Navy Department. When Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles agreed, Cushing proceeded to New York City and there purchased two 30-foot steam launches and armed each with a 12-pounder Dahlgren howitzer. Each launch had at its bow a 14-foot-long spar that could mount a torpedo and be lowered by a windlass. Once the torpedo was in position under the target ship, a tug on the line would release the torpedo to float up under the hull. A second line would activate the firing mechanism. Cushing planned for the first launch to carry

Albemarle, CSS, Destruction ofâ•‡ | 19

out the attack, while the second fired canister from its boat howitzer and stood ready to attack should the first attempt fail. Both launches experienced engine problems on the trip south, and one had to be scuttled off Virginia, where its crew was captured. The other, Steam Picket Boat No. 1, arrived safely in the North Carolina sounds on October 24, whereupon Cushing revealed his plans to the crew. All seven volunteered. Meanwhile, Rear Admiral David D. Porter had replaced Lee, and he approved Cushing’s request to undertake the mission with only one launch. Cushing set out on his attempt the night of October 26, 1864, but the launch grounded at the mouth of the Roanoke. The crew managed to free the launch, but the mishap forced Cushing to postpone his attempt until the next night. The night of October 27 was dark and foul, and Cushing was able to get close to the Plymouth waterfront where the Albemarle was moored. Fourteen volunteers accompanied him. The launch towed a cutter with 2 officers and 10 men to neutralize the Southfield, which the Confederates had scuttled in the middle of the river about a mile from Portsmouth to serve as a picket. The steam launch passed undetected within 30 yards of the Southfield, when at about 3:00 a.m. on October 28 a sentry ashore gave the alarm. Cushing immediately ordered the cutter to cast off, to make for the Southfield, and to secure it, while the launch got up steam for the run to the Albemarle. The Confederates opened fire on the launch from both the Albemarle and the shore. Pickets ignited a ready bonfire to provide illumination, but this also enabled Cushing to spot a protective boom of logs around the ram. Calmly ordering the launch about, Cushing then ran it at full speed toward the obstruction while firing canister from the boat howitzer against the Confederates ashore. Striking the boom at high speed, the launch rode up and over the logs and came to rest next to the Albemarle. As bullets whizzed around him, Cushing somehow managed to lower the spar under the ram and detonate it. When the torpedo went off, the resulting wash of water swamped the launch. The explosion tore a gaping six-foot hole in the ram, causing it to settle rapidly. Of the 15 men in the launch, only Cushing and 1 other escaped; 2 drowned, and 11 were captured. All those on the cutter returned, bringing with them 4 prisoners from the Southfield. Admiral Porter hailed the event, and the Union ships fired signal rockets in celebration. Destruction of the Albemarle enabled Union forces to retake Plymouth and control the entire Roanoke River area, and it released Union ships there for other blockade duties. Congress commended Cushing and advanced him to lieutenant commander. Spencer C. Tucker See also Albemarle, CSS; Albemarle Sound; Cooke, James Wallace; Cushing, William Barker; Lee, Samuel Phillips; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Porter, David Dixon;

20 |â•‡ Albemarle Sound Porter, John Luke; Roanoke Island, North Carolina, Union Capture of; Spar Torpedo; Welles, Gideon

References Elliott, Robert G. Ironclads on the Roanoke: Gilbert Elliott’s Albemarle. Shippensburg, PA: White Mane, 1999. Schneller, Robert J., Jr. Cushing: Civil War SEAL. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 2004. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 10. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1900.

Albemarle Sound Large estuary located in northeastern North Carolina and site of the Battle of Roanoke Island (February 8, 1862) and the Battle of Albemarle Sound (May 5, 1864). Albemarle Sound is a partially enclosed body of water connected to the open Atlantic Ocean at its southern extreme. It is formed by the confluence of several rivers and streams, the most notable of which are the Chowan and Roanoke rivers. The sound is separated from the open sea by a razor-thin stretch of land running north to south and known as the Outer Banks. The sound has many fingerlike protuberances radiating out from the main body of water. Some of them have their own names, like Croatan Sound, which separates the mainland from Roanoke Island. Other smaller sounds contained within the larger one are the Currituck and Roanoke sounds. Albemarle Sound, which is about 55 miles long and from 3 to 14 miles wide, is also home to numerous islands of varying sizes. A shallow inlet, the water depth is no greater than 25 feet. Most of the waters within Albemarle Sound are brackish, meaning semifresh. They generally contain a higher salt content than freshwater, but less salt than seawater. As such, the waterway abounds with marine life that can tolerate both salt and freshwater. To the south of Albemarle Sound lies Pamlico Sound. Because of its geographic and topographic characteristics, the sound is subject to frequent and severe storms, particularly summertime hurricanes and nor’easters in the winter. Hurricanes are a part of life on the Outer Banks and in Albemarle Sound; especially destructive ones have been known to breach narrow points on the Outer Banks, sending salty seawater pouring into the brackish waters of the sound. Albemarle Sound was also the site of the first permanent English settlement in the New World in 1587. On Roanoke Island, a small group of colonists attempted to establish a settlement. Sometime between 1587 and 1590 they all vanished, likely the victims of starvation and/or Native American attack. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Albemarle Sound was an important avenue for seabound trade. Fishing later became the area’s primary industry.

Albemarle Sound, Battle ofâ•‡ | 21

Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr. See also Albemarle Sound, Battle of; Hatteras Inlet, Union Assault on; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Roanoke Island, North Carolina, Union Capture of

References Gale, Judith A. A Guide to Estuaries of the Albemarle-Pamlico Region. Washington, DC: Pamlico–Tar River Foundation, 1989. Stick, David. The Outer Banks of North Carolina, 1854–1958. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990.

Albemarle Sound, Battle of Event Date: May 5, 1864 In April 1864 the new shallow-draft Confederate ironclad ram Albemarle (with two 6.4-inch rifled guns) played the key role in the capture of Plymouth, North Carolina. The attack on the Union base, begun on April 17 by 7,000 Confederate troops under Brigadier General Robert F. Hoke, had failed in large part thanks to gunfire support provided by Union gunboats on the Roanoke River. Early on April 19, however, the Albemarle, captained by Commander James W. Cooke, appeared and attacked the Union wooden gunboats Miami (with one 6.4-inch Parrott rifled gun, six IX-inch smoothbore Dahlgrens, and one 24-pounder boat howitzer) and Southfield (with one 6.4-inch Parrott rifle and five IX-inch Dahlgrens). With Union shot bouncing harmlessly off its plated sides, the Albemarle rammed and sank the Southfield. The commander of the Southfield, Lieutenant Commander Charles W. Flusser, was killed; 11 other Union seamen were wounded, and 8 were taken prisoner. The Albemarle lost 1 man, killed by a pistol shot. The Miami and other Union ships then withdrew from the river to watch the ram from a distance. The Albemarle now controlled the water approaches to Plymouth. Its guns and the sharpshooters aboard the Confederate steamer Cotton Plant enabled the more numerous Confederate infantry to take Plymouth on April 20. Following the loss of Plymouth, Captain Melancton Smith, commanding Union naval forces in the North Carolina sounds, assembled additional ships below Portsmouth. His squadron consisted of the double-ender gunboats Mattabesett (the flagship), Sassacus, Wyalusing, and Miami; the converted ferryboat Commodore Hull; and the Ceres, Whitehead, and Isaac N. Seymour. On the afternoon of May 5 another engagement occurred at the head of Albemarle Sound, off the mouth of the Roanoke River, in consequence of Cooke’s plan to convoy the Cotton Plant to the Alligator River. On exiting the Roanoke, the Albemarle, which was accompanied by the ex-Union steamer Bombshell, was met by six Union gunboats under Lieutenant Commander F. A. Roe in the Sassacus. The Bombshell surrendered early in the action, and the Cotton Plant withdrew back up the Roanoke, but the Albemarle continued the action alone.

22 |â•‡ Alden, James, Jr.

Making between 10 and 11 knots, the Sassacus rammed the Albemarle on its starboard side just abaft the casemate. Simultaneously, the ram fired a rifle bolt that passed completely through the Union ship. Meanwhile, crewmen on the Sassacus tried to throw hand grenades down the deck hatch of the ram, and both sides traded rifle fire. Another Confederate rifle round then smashed into the starboard boiler of the Sassacus. Steam filled the Union ship and killed several men, forcing the Sassacus out of action. The Union side-wheelers Mattabesett and Wyalusing continued to engage the ram. The action continued for three hours until halted by darkness, but the ram was little damaged. The Albemarle then withdrew up the Roanoke River, and the Union side-wheelers Commodore Hull and Ceres took up position at the river’s mouth to try to prevent the ram from reentering the sound. With the Albemarle posing a serious threat to Union coastal operations, Captain Smith sought to find a way to destroy it, but Union monitors drew too much water to operate in the sound, and wooden ships were too vulnerable. The destruction of the ram was finally accomplished by a spar torpedo launched on October 28, 1864. Spencer C. Tucker See also Albemarle, CSS; Albemarle, CSS, Destruction of; Albemarle Sound; Cooke, James Wallace; Cushing, William Barker; Mallory, Stephen Russell; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Porter, John Luke; Roanoke Island, North Carolina, Union Capture of; Spar Torpedo

References Elliott, Robert G. Ironclads on the Roanoke: Gilbert Elliott’s Albemarle. Shippensburg, PA: White Mane, 1999. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 9. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1899.

Alden, James, Jr. Birth Date: March 31, 1810 Death Date: February 6, 1877 U.S. Navy officer. James Alden Jr. was born in Portland, Maine, on March 31, 1810. He received a midshipman’s warrant on April 1, 1828, and was assigned to the Boston Navy Yard. Alden first went to sea in the frigate John Adams in the Mediterranean Squadron. Advanced to passed midshipman on June 14, 1834, he was again assigned to the Boston Yard before joining the U.S. Exploring Expedition to the Antarctic under Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, during which time he was promoted to lieutenant on February 15, 1841. He then served in the South Pacific and participated in a punitive expedition in the Fiji Islands on July 1841. Returning to serve at the Boston Navy Yard, Alden then joined the frigate Constitution for its circumnavigation of the globe (1844–1846), during which time

Alden, James, Jr.â•‡ | 23

he commanded a boat expedition that cut out several junks off Tourane (today Da Nang) in Cochin China. During the Mexican-American War (1846–1848), Alden participated in the U.S. operations against Veracruz, Tuxpan, and Tabasco. He then returned to serve at the Boston Navy Yard before joining the U.S. Coast Survey along the Atlantic coast. In this capacity he commanded in succession the steamers John Y. Mason and Walker. Alden was transferred to the Pacific to perform coastal survey work there while in command of the steamer Active until 1860, during which time he took part in the so-called Pig War of 1855. Alden was promoted to commander on September 1, 1855. At the beginning of the Civil War, Alden commanded the screw steamer USS South Carolina, in which ship he helped relieve Fort Pickens, Florida. He next commanded the steam sloop USS Richmond in Flag Officer David G. Farragut’s West Gulf Blockading Squadron, capturing a dozen Confederate schooners off Galveston, Texas. He then took part in the passage of Fort St. Philip and Fort Jackson leading to the capture of New Orleans; in the passages of Vicksburg, Mississippi; and in operations against Port Hudson, Louisiana. Alden was promoted to captain on January 2, 1863. Given command of the steam sloop USS Brooklyn, Alden was assigned the lead position in the line of wooden warships crossing the bar into Mobile Bay. In the ensuing Battle of Mobile Bay on August 5, 1864, Alden slowed when the ironclad USS Tecumseh leading the line of monitors was sunk by Confederate torpedoes (mines), in effect blocking the channel and causing the Union line to bunch up. When Alden failed to see Farragut’s signal to go ahead, the admiral took the initiative himself, forging ahead in the steam sloop Richmond and saving the situation. Alden’s abilities and courage were never doubted, and he and the Brooklyn subsequently took part in the two Union assaults on Fort Fisher, North Carolina, in December 1864 and January 1865. Promoted to commodore on July 25, 1866, Alden commanded first the sidewheeler frigate USS Susquehanna and then the screw frigate USS Minnesota. He then commanded the Mare Island Navy Yard in California before being appointed chief of the Bureau of Navigation in April 1869. Alden was promoted to rear admiral on June 19, 1871. With his flag in the screw frigate USS Wabash, Alden concluded his naval career as commander of U.S. naval forces in European waters during 1871–1873. Alden died in San Francisco on February 6, 1877. Spencer C. Tucker See also Boston Navy Yard; Brooklyn, USS; Coast Survey, U.S.; Fort Fisher Campaign; Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s Run Past; Fort Pickens, Florida; Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, Relief Efforts and Beginning of the Civil War; Mare Island Navy Yard; Minnesota, USS; Mobile Bay, Battle of; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; Port Hudson, Louisiana, Action at; Susquehanna, USS; Vicksburg, Mississippi, Mississippi Squadron Passage of; Vicksburg, Mississippi, West Gulf Squadron Passage of; Vicksburg Campaign; West Gulf Blockading Squadron; Wilkes, Charles

24 |â•‡ Alligator, USS

References Duffy, James P. Lincoln’s Admiral: The Civil War Campaigns of David Farragut. New York: Wiley, 1997. Friend, Jack. West Wind, Flood Tide: The Battle of Mobile Bay. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2004.

Alligator, USS The U.S. Navy’s first submarine, built chiefly to counter the threat of the Confederate ironclad ram CSS Virginia. The Alligator was designed by the French engineer Brutus de Villeroi and constructed for the U.S. Navy by the Philadelphia firm of Neafie and Levy. Its keel was laid down in early November 1861, and the submarine was launched on May 1, 1862. After being towed to the Philadelphia Navy Yard, the Alligator was fitted out and received a crew, although apparently it was never formally commissioned as a U.S. Navy warship. The Alligator was 47 feet in length, 66 inches from keel to deck, and oar propelled, with a crew of 21. A seaman manned each oar. It also had 2 helmsmen and 2 divers under the supervision of an officer. The divers were charged with leaving the submarine while it was submerged and attaching one of two torpedoes (mines) to enemy ships. The torpedoes would then be exploded electronically. On June 19, 1862, the Alligator departed Philadelphia, under tow by the steam tug Fred Kopp, bound for Hampton Roads, Virginia. The Alligator was assigned to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, with the side-wheel steamer Satellite as its tender. The submarine was next sent up the James River. Here its limitations were glaring. Requiring at least 7.5 feet of water to be entirely submerged, the Alligator could not operate as intended in the shallow water of the tidal James River. And with a speed of only four knots and no protection, the Alligator was an easy target for Confederate ships and shore artillery. Commodore John Rodgers decided that the water in the James and Appomattox rivers provided an unsuitable operational environment, and he ordered the Alligator withdrawn. It was then sent to the Washington Navy Yard for testing. After unsuccessful tests conducted by Lieutenant Thomas O. Selfridge, the submarine’s oars were replaced with a hand-operated screw propeller, which slightly increased its speed. Shortly after President Abraham Lincoln observed a trial with the submarine in the Anacostia River, Rear Admiral Samuel F. Du Pont ordered the Alligator to be towed by the Sumpter to Port Royal, South Carolina, for operations against Charleston, South Carolina. On April 2, 1863, the Sumpter and Alligator encountered a strong storm off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, which forced Sumpter to cut the tow. The Alligator then rapidly sank, but there was no loss of life in the incident.

Amphibious Warfareâ•‡ | 25

In 2005 the Office of Naval Research and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration conducted an unsuccessful search for the submarine off Cape Hatteras. The Alligator nevertheless remains the property of the U.S. government and is protected by the Sunken Military Craft Act. Glenn E. Helm See also Du Pont, Samuel Francis; Hampton Roads, Virginia; James River; Lincoln, Abraham; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Philadelphia Navy Yard; Rodgers, John; Selfridge, Thomas Oliver, Jr.; Spar Torpedo; Submarines; Torpedoes; Virginia, CSS; Washington Navy Yard

References Ragan, Mark K. Union and Confederate Submarine Warfare in the Civil War. Mason City, IA: Savas, 1999. United States Navy. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol. 1, Part A. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 1991.

Amphibious Warfare Although a relatively modern term, amphibious warfare has a long history. Amphibious warfare involves employing naval forces to project military might ashore; until the advent of aircraft, amphibious operations were the sole means of delivering troops to noncontiguous enemy-held terrain. Combined operations involved army and navy forces operating together. There are numerous examples of both amphibious and combined operations in the Civil War. At the start of the conflict, little thought had been given to such operations. There were numerous small amphibious operations during the Mexican-American War (1846–1848). The first large-scale amphibious operation prior to the Civil War occurred in the highly successful landing at Veracruz, Mexico, on the Gulf Coast on March 9, 1847, marking the essential start to Major General Winfield Scott’s campaign against Mexico City. Following the reduction of the Russian Kinburn Forts by French ironclad floating batteries during the Crimean War (1853–1856), many assumed that powerful guns in ironclad ships could successfully reduce coastal fortifications, allowing landings to occur. Certainly U.S. secretary of the navy Gideon Welles and assistant secretary Gustavus V. Fox believed this, and it seemed borne out by early Union naval successes, only to be disproved in the case of Flag Officer Samuel F. Du Pont’s trials against Fort McAllister, Georgia, and his bombardment of Fort Sumter on April 7, 1863. On August 28–29, 1861, Flag Officer Silas H. Stringham led 6 warships, a tug, and 2 transports lifting 900 army troops under Major General Benjamin F. Butler against Confederate-held Hatteras Inlet, North Carolina. The transports towed

26 |â•‡ Amphibious Warfare

schooners carrying surfboats, and two of the warships towed surfboats only. Success here was replicated in an even larger operation against Port Royal, South Carolina, which U.S. Navy flag officer Samuel F. Du Pont took on November 7, 1861, with 75 ships lifting 12,000 soldiers. These two operations secured important bases for the Atlantic Blockading Squadron, although both Hatteras and Port Royal were selected because of the Union’s ability to defend them against subsequent Confederate attack, rather than for future Union offensive operations inland. The first major Union success of the war in the western theater resulted from an amphibious operation in early February 1862. Union ironclads and timberclads under Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote escorted transports with troops commanded by Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant up the Tennessee River. The troops then went ashore near Confederate Fort Henry. As it worked out, conditions precluded the land force getting into position on time, and Foote pressed home the attack on February 6, taking Fort Henry with naval power alone. Union troops then marched to nearby Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River, which soon also fell, this time to the troops. Indeed, Donelson’s better-sited guns repulsed Foote’s naval attack there. Following the capture of Fort Donelson, Foote proceeded down the Mississippi River and combined with Union troops under Major General Leonidas Polk to take Island Number 10 on April 7, 1862. Several of Foote’s ironclads were able to get past the Confederate defenses at night. These ships then ferried Union troops across the river to cut off the Confederates and force their surrender. At the same time that Foote and his successor were operating on the upper reaches of the Mississippi, combined operations were occurring on the lower Mississippi. Flag Officer David G. Farragut oversaw the landing of troops under Major General Benjamin F. Butler and then, on April 24, 1862, led the ships of his West Gulf Blockading Squadron up the river past Confederate forts Jackson and St. Philip, culminating in the capture of New Orleans. Army-navy cooperation was excellent between Rear Admiral David D. Porter and Brigadier General William T. Sherman during operations in the vicinity of Vicksburg, Mississippi, in December 1862–July 1863, even though success was only achieved late. One such example was the operation against Fort Hindman (Arkansas Post) in January 1863. The largest amphibious operation of the war occurred during the Vicksburg Campaign, when during April 30–May 1 Porter’s ships moved across to the east side of the Mississippi some 24,000 of Grant’s troops so that they might operate against Vicksburg from the south and east. Other amphibious operations occurred during the failed Union Red River Campaign (March 10–May 22, 1864). In December 1864 Porter, now commanding the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, assembled the most powerful naval force to that point in U.S. history. The force, consisting of 61 warships, including 5 ironclads, and mounting a total of 635 guns, launched an assault on powerful Confederate Fort Fisher, which guarded the sea approaches to Wilmington, North Carolina, the last open Confederate port for blockade-runners on the Atlantic seaboard. Major General Benjamin F. Butler

Anaconda Strategyâ•‡ | 27

commanded two army divisions of 6,500 men. The first attack was a failure, while the second attack in January, which saw the ineffective Butler replaced with Brigadier General Alfred H. Terry and U.S. marines and sailors joining the troops in fighting ashore, ended in success. Other examples of Union amphibious operations during the Civil War include the Peninsula Campaign in Virginia in 1862. Typical of smaller amphibious landings were the escort and support provided by three navy warships to army transports landing Union troops to capture West Point on the York River on May 6–7, 1862. The navy also supported landings against Galveston, Texas, and on Morris and James Island near Charleston, South Carolina. Lacking major naval forces, the Confederates mounted few amphibious operations during the war. A notable example was the raid on New Bern, North Carolina, on February 1–2, 1864. This operation included sending men down the Neuse River in more than a dozen cutters. Although the Confederates failed to retake New Bern, their effort did result in the sinking of the gunboat Underwriter. Spencer C. Tucker See also Anaconda Strategy; Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Blockade Board; Blockade of the Confederacy; Cairo-Class River Ironclads; Charleston, South Carolina, Du Pont’s Attack on; Cumberland River; Eads, James Buchanan; East Gulf Blockading Squadron; Farragut, David Glasgow; Foote, Andrew Hull; Fort Donelson, Battle of; Fort Fisher Campaign; Fort Henry, Battle of; Fort Hindman, Battle of; Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s Run Past; Fort McAllister, Georgia, Union Attacks on; Fort Sumter, Union Attacks on; Fox, Gustavus Vasa; Galveston, Battle of; Galveston, Texas, Union Capture of; Hatteras Inlet, Union Assault on; Island Number 10, Battle of; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Mobile Bay, Battle of; New Bern, North Carolina, Capture of; New Bern, North Carolina, Confederate Raid on; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Porter, David Dixon; Port Royal Sound, Battle of; Red River Campaign; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Stringham, Silas Horton; Vicksburg Campaign; Welles, Gideon; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Reed, Rowena. Combined Operations in the Civil War. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1978. Simson, Jay W. Naval Strategies of the Civil War: Confederate Innovations and Federal Opportunism. Nashville: Cumberland House, 2001. Symonds, Craig L. The Civil War at Sea. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2009. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Anaconda Strategy U.S. Army general in chief Lieutenant General Winfield Scott’s plan to defeat the Confederacy. Drafted in the several weeks after the fall of Fort Sumter on April 14, 1861, it was derisively known as the “Anaconda Plan” or “Scott’s Anaconda,” for

28 |â•‡ Anaconda Strategy

Cartoon depicting Union general-in-chief Lieutenant General Winfield Scott’s plan to blockade the Confederacy and then bisect it by its great rivers. Derided by many in the North who wanted a more immediate offensive strategy, this plan that was named for the large South American snake that constricts its victims to death formed the basis of the Union victory. (Naval History and Heritage Command)

the South American constrictor that suffocates its victims. The strategy called for a naval blockade of the southern Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coastlines while a strong army of some 60,000 men, supported by steam gunboats, won control of the western rivers, principally the Mississippi, to bisect the South. Scott believed that with the South then sealed off, Southern Union sympathizers could be expected to rise up and throw out the secessionists. Such a plan would take time and resources to implement. Northern public opinion and politicians clamored instead for a quick, devastating blow against the Confederacy. Accordingly the Lincoln Administration initially shelved the plan in favor of a “decisive” battle strategy. Although President Abraham Lincoln had adopted the coastal blockade at the beginning of the war, it was only after the Union defeat on land in the First Battle of Manassas/Bull Run on July 21, 1861, that he incorporated seizure of the western rivers into his strategy. This focused Union military efforts on the Mississippi River. In the summer of 1863 Union forces secured control of that strategic

Anderson, Joseph Reidâ•‡ | 29

waterway. This, along with the coastal blockade and aggressive operations by the Union field armies, eventually proved fatal to the Confederacy. Richard W. Peuser See also Amphibious Warfare; Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Blockade Board; Blockade of the Confederacy; Eads, James Buchanan; East Gulf Blockading Squadron; Gulf Blockading Squadron; Lincoln, Abraham; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron

References Hattaway, Herman, and Archer Jones. How the North Won: A Military History of the Civil War. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991. Reed, Rowena. Combined Operations in the Civil War. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1978. Symonds, Craig L. Lincoln and His Admirals. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.

Anderson, Joseph Reid Birth Date: February 16, 1813 Death Date: September 7, 1892 Civil engineer, industrialist, and Confederate army officer. Joseph Reid Anderson was born near Fincastle, Virginia, on February 16, 1813, the grandson of a colonel who had served in the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, and the son of a self-instructed engineer and surveyor. Anderson enrolled at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and graduated fourth in the class of 1836. Commissioned a second lieutenant in the artillery, he served for just over a year before deciding that his engineering abilities would best serve in civilian employment. Beginning in 1837 Anderson worked in a variety of capacities, including as a state engineer in Virginia under noted French civil engineer Claudius Crozet. He served as chief engineer for the (Shenandoah) Valley Turnpike Company, then gained employment with the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, Virginia, one of the nation’s leading metal fabrication factories and foundries. Before long, Anderson was overseeing the entire operation and had built the company tremendously in terms of both profits and technological innovations. By the late 1850s Tredegar was fabricating naval equipment, cannon, cables, and steam locomotives, among other things. When the Civil War began in 1861, Anderson offered his services to lead troops in the field. Commissioned a brigadier general on September 3, 1861, he served first on the North Carolina coast and then in Virginia, where he helped repel Union major general George B. McClellan’s advance toward Richmond. Anderson also saw action at the Battle of Mechanicsville on June 26, 1862, and the Battle of Gaines’ Mill on June 27. He was wounded at the Battle of White Oak Swamp on June 30, 1862.

30 |â•‡ Arkansas, CSS

That same month Anderson resigned his commission to concentrate on work at the Tredegar Iron Works, at the time the only Confederate foundry capable of casting the largest guns. Resuming supervision of all production at the Tredegar, he worked closely with the Confederate Ordnance Department. Anderson’s company churned out a formidable array of items for the army and navy, including cannon, munitions, artillery carriages, and iron plating for Confederate ironclads. Despite problems with transportation and finding skilled workers for the foundry, the Tredegar remained the preeminent metal manufacturer in the entire South, without which the war might well have ended sooner. Anderson remained at the Tredegar until the end of the war, leaving only during the evacuation of Richmond on April 2–3, 1865. Fearing that either fleeing Confederate troops or occupying Union troops would damage the facility, Anderson hired—allegedly at his own expense—50 armed guards to watch over the plant. As a result, the Tredegar Iron Works was spared during the subsequent burning of Richmond. The federal government seized the facility but by 1867 had turned it back over to Anderson. The company stayed in the Anderson family for many years, and Anderson was a well-respected Virginia businessman until his death at Isles of Shoals, New Hampshire, on September 7, 1892. Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr. See also Scofield and Markham Gate City Iron Works; Shelby Iron Company; Tredegar Iron Works

References Daniel, Larry J., and Riley W. Gunter. Confederate Cannon Foundries. Union City, TN: Pioneer, 1977. Dew, Charles B. Ironmaker to the Confederacy: Joseph R. Anderson and the Tredegar Iron Works. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1966.

Arkansas, CSS A Confederate twin-screw ironclad ram that operated on the Yazoo and Mississippi rivers. The Confederates began the construction of the Arkansas in October 1861 at Memphis, Tennessee, but it was not completed until July 1862, having been relocated to Yazoo City, Mississippi, in May 1862 to escape Union capture at Memphis. The ship was 165 feet long and 35 feet in beam, with a draft of about 11 feet, 5 inches. The sides of the ship’s casemate were perpendicular, while the two ends were slanted. The casemate was protected with 18 inches of iron and wood, the iron being railway T-rails. The Arkansas had one advantage in terms of maneuverability; its two propellers acted directly on the engines. As a consequence, reversing one screw enabled the ram to turn in a very short length.

Arkansas, CSSâ•‡ | 31

The powerful Confederate ironclad Arkansas operated on the Yazoo and Mississippi rivers in the Western Theater. On July 15, 1862 it engaged Union warships in the Yazoo and then ran south through the entire Union fleet above Vicksburg. Drawing by R. G. Skerrett. (1904) (Naval History and Heritage Command)

The Arkansas had a crew of 200 men, including Confederate army gunners. It was armed with two XI-inch Dahlgren smoothbores, two 8-inch/64-pounders, two 32-pounder smoothbores, and two 6-inch rifles. The ship was painted a dull brown color. On May 26, 1862, Confederate States Navy lieutenant Isaac Newton Brown assumed command. The Arkansas first saw action on July 15, 1862, when it encountered U.S. ships conducting a reconnaissance of the Yazoo River. The Union ships immediately retired, but the Arkansas pursued, and in the subsequent engagement its gunners hit the Union ironclad Carondelet 13 times, badly damaging it and forcing it ashore. Confederate fire also badly damaged the timberclad Tyler, but the ram Queen of the West escaped unharmed. Pursuing the fleeing Union vessels, the Arkansas entered the Mississippi River and then ran past Rear Admiral David G. Farragut’s U.S. Navy squadron, trading broadsides with many of his ships before docking at the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Farragut was furious at the escape of the Arkansas and ordered an attack as he ran his ships past Vicksburg that same day. It was dark when the Union squadron reached Vicksburg, however, and nothing came of the attempt. On July 22 Commander William D. Porter led another effort in the ironclad Essex and ram Queen of the West to destroy the Arkansas. This too failed, although the Arkansas did sustain some damage in the exchange of fire and in glancing blows from attempts by the Union ships to ram. The Confederates were able to prevent Union crews from boarding the ironclad, and both Union ships were also damaged in the exchange of fire. Although badly in need of repairs and with its engines in poor shape, the Arkansas was ordered south to Baton Rouge to support a land attack by some 3,000

32 |â•‡ Arkansas, CSS, Union Attempts to Destroy

Confederates, under Major General John C. Breckenridge, against about the same number of Union troops entrenched around Baton Rouge under Brigadier General Thomas Williams. Brown, however, was sick ashore, and executive officer Lieutenant Henry K. Stevens assumed command. He departed Vicksburg on August 3, also without the ship’s chief engineer. Approaching Baton Rouge on August 5, the Arkansas’s engines broke down, and the ship anchored for repairs. It got under way again, but suffered another breakdown only a few miles above the city. The starboard engine quit, and torque from the other engine drove the ship ashore. Meanwhile, Union forces were winning the Battle of Baton Rouge. Had the Arkansas arrived there, the outcome might have been different. Commander Porter learned of the presence of the Arkansas at 8:00 a.m. the next morning, August 6, and he immediately led a small squadron upriver to attack it. The Confederates had just completed repairs, but when the ram moved to engage the Essex, its engines again broke down, and again the ship drifted to the shore. Rather than see his ship fall into Union hands, Stevens landed his men and ordered the crew to fire it. Set alight, it drifted downstream for more than an hour before at last blowing up. Learning of its destruction, General Breckenridge decided to end his attack and withdraw his forces from Baton Rouge. Glenn E. Helm See also Arkansas, CSS, Union Attempts to Destroy; Baton Rouge, Battle of; Brown, Isaac Newton; Carondelet, USS; Essex, USS; Farragut, David Glasgow; Ironclads, Confederate; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Porter, William David; Queen of the West, USS; Tyler, USS; Vicksburg, Mississippi, West Gulf Squadron Passage of; Vicksburg Campaign; Yazoo River

References Ballard, Michael B. Vicksburg: The Campaign That Opened the Mississippi. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. United States Navy. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol. 2. Washington, DC: Naval History Division, 1963.

Arkansas, CSS, Union Attempts to Destroy Event Dates: July 15 and 22, 1862 On July 1, 1862, Flag Officer David G. Farragut and ships of his West Gulf Blockading Squadron linked up with the Upper Mississippi Flotilla under Flag Officer Charles H. Davis below the Yazoo River, about a dozen miles above Vicksburg, Mississippi. Some 3,000 Union troops under Brigadier General Thomas Williams then began digging a canal across the mile-wide peninsula formed by the U-shaped bend in the river on which Vicksburg was located. If completed, this canal from

Arkansas, CSS, Union Attempts to Destroyâ•‡ | 33

Young’s Point would cause the Mississippi to bypass Vicksburg beyond range of many of its land batteries. But with half his crews sick and the river falling, Farragut was fearful of being trapped there with his big ships, and the partially completed project was abandoned. Before the Union ships could depart, however, the Confederates sent out their powerful ironclad Arkansas. The preceding May, Confederate authorities at Memphis, to prevent its capture by Union forces upon the capitulation of that Mississippi River city, had sent the uncompleted Arkansas to Yazoo City. Hastily constructed with poor engines, and salvaged from the sunken river steamer Natchez, the Arkansas was a casemated ironclad with a ram bow but perpendicular casemate and armed with eight guns. Union commanders were aware of the presence of the Arkansas in the Yazoo; indeed Union forces in the river learned on the evening of July 14 from two Confederate deserters that the ram, facing the same difficulty of a falling water level, would soon sortie. Farragut, Davis, and Williams then met and agreed to send a reconnaissance force of three ships up the Yazoo: Lieutenant Colonel Alfred Ellet’s ram Queen of the West, only recently returned to active duty following repairs and strengthened by army sharpshooters; the timberclad Tyler; and the ironclad Carondelet. On July 15, rounding a bend in the river, the Union ships discovered the more powerful Confederate ship proceeding downriver from Yazoo City under Lieutenant Isaac Newton Brown. The Arkansas immediately attacked. As the Union ships fled back toward the Mississippi, the Arkansas fired on them with its bow guns, scoring 13 hits on the unprotected stern of the Carondelet and forcing it into shallow water, where it went aground. Confederate fire also damaged the Tyler, although the Queen of the West escaped unscathed. At 8:00 a.m. the Arkansas exited the Yazoo into the Mississippi under full power. Steaming south, it passed some 20 unprepared Union ships that did not have steam up, trading broadsides with many of them. Perhaps to the surprise of its own crew, the Arkansas then docked at Vicksburg. Brown was later promoted to commander for this success. An embarrassed and angry Farragut attempted to destroy the Arkansas as he ran his ships south past Vicksburg later that same day. It was dark when the Union ships reached the city, and the attempt failed. Commander William D. Porter volunteered to try with the U.S. Navy ironclad Essex. The plan agreed upon called for Davis and Farragut to get both their squadrons under way at 4:00 a.m. on July 22, with Davis shelling the northern Vicksburg batteries and Farragut’s ships occupying the Confederate batteries south of the city. Porter’s Essex and Ellet’s ram Queen of the West would then converge on the ram in an attempt to capture or destroy it. As it turned out, the Union attacks were not simultaneous, and the attempt failed, although the Arkansas took considerable punishment in an exchange of fire with the Essex and from glancing blows by both the Essex and Queen of the West. Confederate field pieces and sharpshooters ashore prevented the Union attempt to board the Arkansas. Both Union ships were also

34 |â•‡ Arkansas River

damaged in the exchange of fire. The Essex was hit 42 times, but only penetrated twice. It lost one man killed and three wounded. Two days after the abortive attack on the Confederate ironclad, the Union troops in the Vicksburg area were taken aboard transports to return with Farragut’s squadron to New Orleans. Farragut left behind only a token force of four ships at Baton Rouge, centered on the Essex and gunboat Sumter, in case the Arkansas ventured south. Spencer C. Tucker See also Arkansas, CSS; Baton Rouge, Battle of; Brown, Isaac Newton; Carondelet, USS; Ellet, Alfred Washington; Essex, USS; Farragut, David Glasgow; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Porter, William David; Queen of the West, USS; Ram Fleet, U.S.; Tyler, USS; Vicksburg, Mississippi, West Gulf Squadron Passage of; Vicksburg Campaign; Yazoo River

References Still, William N., Jr. Iron Afloat: The Story of the Confederate Armorclads. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1985. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 19. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1905.

Arkansas Post, Battle of See Fort Hindman, Battle of

Arkansas River Principal tributary of the Mississippi River and the sixth longest river in the United States. Approximately 1,470 miles in length, the Arkansas River has its source in the Rocky Mountains, near Leadville in Lake County, Colorado. The river flows east and then southeast, beginning in central Colorado and traversing the states of Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, where it empties into the Mississippi River near the modern-day town of Napoleon, not far from Vicksburg, Mississippi, a key target for Union offensives during the Civil War. The Arkansas River basin drains nearly 195,000 square miles. Near its headwaters, the river runs fast and narrow, dropping some 4,600 feet in elevation over 120 miles. Near Pueblo, Colorado, the river becomes markedly wider and its flow slower. The Arkansas is navigable to large vessels from the Mississippi west into northeastern Oklahoma.

Armstrong, Jamesâ•‡ | 35

Major cities along the Arkansas River include Wichita, Kansas; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Fort Smith, Arkansas; and Little Rock, Arkansas. Prior to the arrival of Europeans in North America, numerous Native American tribes called the Arkansas River basin home. The Santa Fe Trail, begun in early 1820 and used by thousands of settlers moving west, generally paralleled the river through much of Kansas. The Arkansas River is prone to flooding, particularly in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The January 9–11, 1863, Battle of Fort Hindman took place near the confluence of the Arkansas and Mississippi rivers at Arkansas Post, as part of the Union effort to capture Vicksburg and control the lower Mississippi. Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr. See also Fort Hindman, Battle of; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Vicksburg Campaign

References Ballard, Michael B. Vicksburg: The Campaign That Opened the Mississippi. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. Sherman, Jory. The Arkansas River. New York: Bantam Books, 1991. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Armstrong, James Birth Date: January 17, 1794 Death Date: August 25, 1868 U.S. Navy officer. James Armstrong was born in Shelbyville, Kentucky, on January 17, 1794. He received a midshipman’s warrant on November 15, 1809. Armstrong was promoted to lieutenant on April 27, 1816; to commander on March 3, 1825; and to captain on September 8, 1841. Armstrong commanded the East India Squadron in Chinese waters in 1855 during the Second Opium War. In poor health, he soon returned to the United States. When Florida seceded from the Union, Armstrong was commanding the small Pensacola Navy Yard. On January 12, 1861, he surrendered the yard to Florida state forces. U.S. forces then withdrew to Fort Pickens, which they held throughout the war. Armstrong was brought before a court-martial in Washington, D.C., that March on charges of dereliction of duty, and disobedience of orders and conduct unbecoming an officer. Found guilty, he was suspended from duty for a period of five years. Commodore Armstrong retired from the navy on April 4, 1867. He died on August 25, 1868, reportedly while living in Massachusetts. Spencer C. Tucker See also Fort Pickens, Florida; Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, Relief Efforts and Beginning of the Civil War; Pensacola Navy Yard

36 |â•‡ Armstrong, James F.

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 4. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1896.

Armstrong, James F. Birth Date: November 20, 1817 Death Date: April 19, 1873 U.S. Navy officer. James F. Armstrong was born in New Jersey on November 20, 1817. He was appointed a midshipman on March 7, 1832. His first service was in the ship of the line Delaware, in the Mediterranean Squadron. In 1837 he transferred to the West India Squadron. He was promoted to passed midshipman on June 23, 1838, and to lieutenant on December 8, 1842. Assignments at sea and ashore followed. At the beginning of the Civil War, Armstrong assumed command of the converted warship USS Sumter in the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. Promoted to commander on June 8, 1861, he served in the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron in command of the converted steamer USS State of Georgia. One of the most successful of Union blockade ship commanders, Armstrong captured half a dozen Confederate blockade-runners during the war. He also participated in the capture of Fort Macon, North Carolina (April 25, 1862). He was promoted to captain on July 16, 1862. In 1864 he commanded the screw frigate USS San Jacinto in the East Gulf Blockading Squadron and then commanded the Pensacola Navy Yard. Promoted to captain on September 27, 1866, Armstrong was placed on the reserve list on April 4, 1867. In 1871 he was reinstated and detailed to command the Mare Island Navy Yard in California. Armstrong again retired on September 2, 1872. He died in New Haven, Connecticut, on April 19, 1873. Spencer C. Tucker See also Mare Island Navy Yard; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Pensacola Navy Yard; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Sumter, CSS

References Browning, Robert M., Jr. From Cape Charles to Cape Fear: The North Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1993. Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Navy Historical Division, Navy Department. Civil War Naval Chronology, 1861–1865. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971.

Artillery Projectiles, Navalâ•‡ | 37

Artillery Projectiles, Naval Naval shot and shell were similar to those used by land forces. For the smoothbore guns these consisted principally of solid round shot, explosive shell, grape shot (by 1861 also known as tier shot), and case shot (canister). All totaled approximately the same weight as solid shot for the particular gun. Parrott and Dahlgren rifled guns for the Union, and Brooke rifled guns for the Confederates, fired elongated shot and shell similar to those used in these guns on land. The most common projectiles were those developed by Parrott, Hotchkiss, and Schenkl. Dahlgren also developed a projectile for his rifled guns. For centuries solid shot had been the mainstay at sea. Because a ship’s carpenter could easily patch holes, shot was primarily used for inflicting personnel casualties rather than attempting to sink an enemy ship. Gunners also hoped to destroy masts or spars and rigging in order to disable an enemy vessel so that one’s own ship could then take up position at either bow or stern and “rake” it. Personnel casualties were caused primarily by splinters from the impact of solid shot striking wood at high velocity. Wooden warships could absorb tremendous punishment and were rarely sunk in battle; those that did sink usually succumbed to fire or the explosion of a magazine. Most that were surrendered came in consequence of excessive personnel casualties by means of solid shot, grape, or canister at short ranges, or after being taken by boarding. Explosive shell, however, offered the possibility of actually sinking an enemy ship. The first major experiments with shell guns occurred in France in the 1820s. These large guns were specifically designed to fire explosive shell at slow velocity.

Stand of Civil War tier or grape shot; it consisted of nine iron solid shot in three tiers around a central spindle. The whole broke apart on firing. Grape or tier shot was employed against personnel and small boats. (Vicksburg National Military Park)

38 |â•‡ Artillery Projectiles, Naval

Because of the reduced powder charge necessary, such guns could be larger and lighter for weight of shot. The intent was to lodge the shell in the side of the opposing ship, where it would explode and tear a large hole, with the prospect of actually sinking the ship. The effect of explosive shell in naval warfare was conclusively demonstrated in 1853 in the Battle of Sinope (Sinop), when ships of the Russian navy destroyed a Turkish squadron. All navies then included large shell guns as a growing part of their naval armaments. Wooden fuses for the shells, which tended to deteriorate in hot, humid conditions aboard ship, were replaced in the 1850s by metal fuses. These were of a variety of types, with the highly effective Bormann Fuze favored for boat howitzer shells. The shell was strapped to a wooden sabot that kept the fuse positioned in the direction of the muzzle. Ironically, it was not shell but solid shot, projected at high velocity, that effected the most damage against the new ironclad ships, which first made their appearance in warfare during the Crimean War (1853–1856). At the same time, the 1844 explosion of the large, 12-inch, wrought-iron “Peacemaker Gun” aboard the U.S. Navy steam sloop Princeton brought a Navy Department order that halved the allowable powder charge for heavy guns. This undoubtedly inhibited the effectiveness of the XI-inch Dahlgren guns aboard the U.S. Navy ironclad Monitor in its engagement with the Confederate ironclad ram Virginia in March 1862. Because the durable Dahlgren guns were so strong and reliable, this order was revoked shortly thereafter. Solid shot could also be heated by means of furnaces aboard ship, and this “hot shot” was employed to set fire to enemy wooden ships and to installations ashore. Care had to be taken in loading such shot through extra wadding so as not to prematurely touch off the charge in the gun, however. Grape and canister were also employed at sea, usually against enemy boats but also at close range against personnel. Grape or tier shot consisted usually of nine balls, grouped in three tiers around an iron spindle. These scattered on firing. Canister shot consisted of scrap metal or small balls in a thin can that also broke apart on firing, with much the same effect as a modern shotgun. Unique to naval warfare was disabling and chain shot. These came in a variety of types. The most common chain shot consisted of two hemispheres of solid shot connected with a chain. Such shot were used to disable an enemy ship by destroying its spars and rigging. Range over water was increased by firing the projectiles at a relatively flat trajectory and “skipping” them to their targets. In close actions guns might be double- or even triple-shotted at ranges of no more than several hundred yards. Spencer C. Tucker See also Floating Battery; Spar Torpedo; Submarine Battery Service; Submarines; Torpedoes

Atlanta, CSSâ•‡ | 39

References Hogg, Ian, and John Batchelor. Naval Gun. Poole, Dorsett, UK: Blandford, 1978. Kinard, Jeff. Artillery: An Illustrated History of Its Impact. Santa Barbara, CA: ABCCLIO, 1997. Tucker, Spencer C. Arming the Fleet: U.S. Navy Ordnance in the Muzzle-Loading Era. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989.

Atlanta, CSS Confederate Navy ironclad ram converted from the blockade-runner Fingal. Built by the firm of Thomson in Glasgow and launched in May 1861, the Fingal was purchased in England by Confederate Navy agent James D. Bulloch, who then took aboard a cargo of military equipment and ammunition. On October 15, 1861, the Fingal departed Holyhead, Wales, for Bermuda under Bulloch’s command. From there the ship made the run to Savannah, passing by the Union blockaders and reaching that port on November 22. The Fingal carried the most important cargo to reach Savannah by sea during the war. It included 14,000 Enfield rifles; 1 million cartridges; 2 million percussion caps; thousands of sabers, bayonets, rifles, and revolvers; 10 rifled cannon and ammunition; 400 barrels of powder; and assorted medical supplies. With Savannah tightly blockaded, Bulloch was unable to get the Fingal to sea to return to England. In early 1862 the ship was cut down at the waterline and rebuilt by Asa F. and Nelson Tift as the casemated ironclad ram Atlanta. As built,

The Confederate ironclad ram Atlanta was converted from the blockade runner Fingal built in Scotland in 1861. Armed with four rifled guns and a bow-mounted spar torpedo, it was captured following a battle with Union warships on June 17, 1863. Drawing by R. G. Skerrett, 1901. (Naval History and Heritage Command)

40 |â•‡ Atlantic Blockading Squadron

the Atlanta displaced 1,006 tons, was 204 feet in length, had three screws, and made seven knots during its trial run on July 31, 1862. It had a crew of 145: 21 officers and 124 seamen and marines. The Atlanta mounted four guns: two 7-inch Brooke rifles and two 6.4-inch Parrott rifles. It was also fitted with a bow-mounted spar torpedo. Early on the morning of June 17, 1863, the Atlanta, commanded by Confederate Navy commander William A. Webb and accompanied by the wooden steamers Isondiga and Resolute, exited the Wilmington River and there engaged the U.S. Navy Passaic-class monitors Nahant and Weehawken under Captain John Rodgers. The two Confederate wooden ships fled without engaging the Union warships, while the battle of the ironclads lasted only several minutes. The Atlanta briefly grounded, and its crew was able to get off only seven shots before it was run ashore and forced to surrender with 1 man killed and 16 others wounded. Repaired at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, the ship was commissioned in the U.S. Navy as USS Atlanta in February 1864. The Atlanta served in the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron and then the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron in the James River. Sold off on May 4, 1869, it was purchased by Haiti and renamed the Triumph but sank off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, in December 1869. Spencer C. Tucker See also Blockade-Runners; Bulloch, James Dunwody; East Gulf Blockading Squadron; Fingal, CSS; Ironclads, Confederate; James River; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Passaic-Class Monitors; Philadelphia Navy Yard; Rodgers, John; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Spar Torpedo; Wassaw Sound, Battle of; Webb, William Augustine

References Browning, Robert M., Jr. Success Is All That Was Expected: The South Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War. Dulles, VA: Brassey’s, 2002. Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. Stern, Philip Van Doren. The Confederate Navy: A Pictorial History. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1962. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. II, Vol. 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1921.

Atlantic Blockading Squadron On April 19, 1861, U.S. president Abraham Lincoln announced a naval blockade of the southern coast from South Carolina to Texas. On April 27 he issued a second proclamation extending the blockade to Virginia and North Carolina. To enforce this naval blockade, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles organized the blockading ships into three squadrons: the Home Squadron, based at Fortress Monroe; the Coast Blockading Squadron, with the Potomac Flotilla (centered on the Potomac

Atlantic Blockading Squadronâ•‡ | 41

and Rappahannock rivers and charged with the defense of Washington); and the Gulf Blockading Squadron. On May 1 Welles appointed Flag Officer Silas H. Stringham to be commander of the Coast Blockading Squadron. Stringham took up his new command at Hampton Roads, Virginia, on May 4. On May 17 the Coast Blockading Squadron became the Atlantic Blockading Squadron. It had responsibility for enforcing the blockade all the way from Alexandria, Virginia, to Key West, Florida, a distance of some 1,000 miles. Stringham resigned his command on September 16, 1861, following receipt of a letter from Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gustavus V. Fox that Stringham believed to be critical of his performance. Welles accepted the resignation on September 18 and that same day appointed as Stringham’s replacement Flag Officer Louis M. Goldsborough. The transfer of command took place at Hampton Roads on September 23. Welles enjoined Goldsborough to pursue “more vigorous and energetic action” in enforcing the blockade. Given the vast distances involved, on September 18, 1861, the Navy Department further divided the blockade areas of responsibility. This decision was formally communicated on October 12. For the Atlantic Blockading Squadron, the dividing line was the border between North Carolina and South Carolina. Goldsborough became commander of the new North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, while Flag Officer Samuel F. Du Pont assumed command of the new South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. The Gulf Blockading Squadron covered an even greater distance, from Key West, Florida, to Brownsville, Texas. It was divided into the East Gulf Blockading Squadron and West Gulf Blockading Squadron. Spencer C. Tucker See also Anaconda Strategy; Blockade Board; Blockade of the Confederacy; BlockadeRunners; Du Pont, Samuel Francis; East Gulf Blockading Squadron; Fox, Gustavus Vasa; Goldsborough, Louis Malesherbes; Gulf Blockading Squadron; Lincoln, Abraham; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Potomac Flotilla; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Stringham, Silas Horton; Welles, Gideon; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Browning, Robert M., Jr. From Cape Charles to Cape Fear: The North Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1993. Browning, Robert M., Jr. Success Is All That Was Expected: The South Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War. Dulles, VA: Brassey’s, 2002. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vols. 5 and 6. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1897.


B Bache, Alexander Dallas Birth Date: July 19, 1806 Death Date: February 17, 1867 Superintendent of the U.S. Coast Survey. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on July 19, 1806, Alexander Dallas Bache developed an interest in both science and education like his great-grandfather Benjamin Franklin before him. Bache graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1825 without having received a single demerit and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers. He then served as an instructor at West Point and also assisted in the construction of U.S. coastal fortifications, including Fort Adams, at Newport, Rhode Island. Bache resigned his army commission on June 1, 1829. During 1836–1838 Bache was in Europe studying education systems there on behalf of what became Girard College in 1848. During 1839–1842 he was the first president of Central High School in Philadelphia, one of the first public high schools in the nation. He was then professor of natural philosophy (physics) and chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania during 1828–1841 and 1842–1843. In 1843 Bache was appointed superintendent of the U.S. Coast Survey, which worked closely with the U.S. Navy and often utilized naval officers in carrying out its work. Here he embarked on an ambitious program of completing the work of charting the entire U.S. coastline, as well as collecting valuable meteorological and magnetic data. At the beginning of the Civil War, when he was approached by the Navy Department regarding data on the Confederate coasts, Bache recommended to prominent figures in the U.S. Navy and to Chief Clerk Gustavus V. Fox the appointment of a board to set naval strategy. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles and Fox concurred, and created the board in June 1861. As such a board would require data held by the Coast Survey, Bache became one of the four members of what became known as the Blockade Board, or Strategy Board. The board members recommended a new organizational structure for the U.S. Navy’s blockade of the South, stressed the importance of steamships for an effective blockade, and called for the seizing of enclaves along the Confederate coast to serve as coaling stations for the ships of the blockading squadrons. Bache died at Newport, Rhode Island, on February 17, 1867. Spencer C. Tucker See also Anaconda Strategy; Blockade Board; Blockade of the Confederacy; Coast Survey, U.S.; Fox, Gustavus Vasa; Welles, Gideon 43

44 |â•‡ Bache, George Mifflin

References Odgers, Merle M. Alexander Dallas Bache: Scientist and Educator. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1947. Slotten, Hugh R. Patronage, Practice, and the Culture of American Science: Alexander Dallas Bache and the U.S. Coast Survey. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Taaffe, Stephen R. Commanding Lincoln’s Navy: Union Naval Leadership during the Civil War. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2009.

Bache, George Mifflin Birth Date: November 12, 1840 Death Date: February 11, 1896 U.S. Navy officer. George Mifflin Bache was born in Washington, D.C., on November 12, 1840. He secured a warrant as an acting midshipman on November 19, 1857. Bache was advanced to midshipman on graduation from the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, on June 1, 1861. Assigned to the sailing sloop Jamestown in the Atlantic Blockading Squadron, Bache then served briefly in the steam sloop Powhatan in the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron off Charleston, before being promoted to lieutenant on July 16, 1862, and being transferred to the western theater in late 1862 to command the Cairo-class (City-class) river ironclad Cincinnati. Bache had charge of the Cincinnati in operations along the Mississippi and up the Yazoo River (November 21–December 11, 1862); in the bombardment of Drumgould’s Bluff in the Yazoo on December 28; in the expedition up the White River, and bombardment and capture of Fort Hindman, Arkansas, on January 9–11, 1863; and in the expedition to Steele’s Bayou, Mississippi, during March 14–26, 1863. On May 27, as the steady Union bombardment of Vicksburg continued from both land and water, Rear Admiral David D. Porter, commander of the Mississippi Squadron, ordered Bache to take the Cincinnati and destroy a Confederate battery on Fort Hill that threatened an impending move by Major General William T. Sherman’s troops. As the ironclad worked into position, the river current turned the vessel around, exposing its weak stern and allowing the Confederates ashore to rake it with shell fire. With his ship in a sinking condition, Bache tried to work back upriver close to shore. The crew managed to secure the Cincinnati with a hawser to a tree on shore, but the rope gave way, and the gunboat slipped into deeper water and sank. Forty of its crew were casualties. Assigned command of the side-wheeler timberclad Lexington, Bache led this river gunboat in operations up the White, Black, and Ouachita rivers during the summer of 1863. Assigned in 1864 to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron as the executive officer of the Powhatan, Bache participated in the Union assaults on

Bailey,Theodorusâ•‡ | 45

Fort Fisher in December 1864 and January 1865. He was slightly wounded in the successful January attack. Following the Civil War, Bache was promoted to lieutenant commander on July 15, 1866, and served in the screw sloop Sacramento until that ship grounded and was destroyed on a reef at the mount of the Godavari River in Madras, India, on June 19, 1867. During 1869–1872 Bache served in the screw sloop Juniata in the European Squadron. He then was assigned to ordnance duties at the Washington Navy Yard until his retirement, when he was advanced to commander on the retired list on April 5, 1875. Bache died in Washington, D.C., on February 11, 1896. Spencer C. Tucker See also Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Cairo-Class River Ironclads; Cincinnati, USS; Fort Fisher Campaign; Fort Hindman, Battle of; Lexington, USS; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Naval Academy, United States; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Porter, David Dixon; Powhatan, USS; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Steele’s Bayou Expedition; Vicksburg Campaign; Washington Navy Yard; White River Expedition, U.S. Navy; Yazoo River

References Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 25. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1912.

Bailey, Theodorus Birth Date: April 12, 1805 Death Date: February 10, 1877 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Chateaugay, New York, on April 12, 1805, Theodorus Bailey received a midshipman’s warrant on January 1, 1818. His first cruise was aboard the sloop Cyane, which captured several slavers off Africa during 1820– 1821. Bailey was in the Pacific in the ship of the line Franklin during 1821–1824. Bailey was commissioned a lieutenant on March 3, 1827. He made a circumnavigation of the globe in the sloop Vincennes during 1833–1836. He was again in the Pacific in the Constellation during 1841–1843. His first command, in 1846, was of the storeship Lexington, which he sailed to California during the MexicanAmerican War, transporting men and supplies to Monterey. Landing his men and having transformed his ship into an armed cruiser, Bailey captured San Blas and then assisted in the U.S. military pacification of California. Bailey was advanced to commander on March 6, 1849. Taking command of the sloop St. Mary’s in 1853, he cruised in the Pacific for three years and helped restore

46 |â•‡ Bailey,Theodorus

friendly relations with the people of Fiji. He was promoted to captain on December 15, 1855. By the beginning of 1861, Bailey had served in the U.S. Navy for 43 years: some 19 years in service afloat, 5 years in assignments ashore, and 18 years awaiting orders in a navy with too many officers for available billets. At the beginning of the Civil War, Bailey assumed command of the new (commissioned in 1858) screw frigate Colorado in the Gulf Blockading Squadron, participating in operations at Pensacola in May 1861. Bailey joined Flag Officer David G. Farragut as second in command of the West Gulf Coast Blockading Squadron and led the passage of Fort St. Philip and Fort Jackson on the lower Mississippi River in the screw gunboat Cayuga on April 24, 1862, the first Union ship past the water barrier. Farragut assigned Bailey to take the surrender of New Orleans. Commissioned a commodore on July 16, 1862, Bailey was assigned to command the East Gulf Coast Blockading Squadron on November 4. He took command on December 9. Under Bailey’s leadership, the squadron aggressively patrolled the Florida coast. Over the next year, of 52 vessels attempting to run the blockade, only 7 made it, and during a six months’ period the blockaders captured nearly 100 ships. Bailey’s warships also attacked vessels at dockside taking on or offloading cargo, and they raided up bays and rivers. Following the war Bailey commanded the Portsmouth Navy Yard during 1865– 1867. Advanced to rear admiral on July 25, 1866, he retired from the navy on October 10, 1866. Bailey died in Washington, D.C., on February 10, 1877. Spencer C. Tucker See also Blockade-Runners; East Gulf Blockading Squadron; Farragut, David Glasgow; Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s Run Past; Fort Pickens, Florida; Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, Relief Efforts and Beginning of the Civil War; Gulf Blockading Squadron; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; Pensacola Navy Yard; Portsmouth Navy Yard; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Musicant, Ivan. Divided Waters: The Naval History of the Civil War. New York: HarperÂ� Collins, 1995. Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Bailey’s Dam See Red River Campaign

Balloonsâ•‡ | 47

Balloons During the American Civil War, both the Union and Confederate sides experimented with balloons for aerial reconnaissance. In April 1861 aeronaut Thaddeus S. C. Lowe wrote U.S. secretary of the treasury Salmon Chase proposing the establishment of a balloon corps. Chase subsequently arranged a meeting between Lowe and President Abraham Lincoln. On June 17, 1861, Lowe ascended in his balloon, the Enterprise, over Washington, D.C. Lincoln was impressed enough to secure the establishment of a Balloon Corps with Lowe as its head. Lowe’s Balloon Corps served the Union Army from 1861 to 1863. Lowe oversaw the construction of seven balloons for the army and ultimately developed a mobile field generator to produce hydrogen gas in the field. The Balloon Corps saw extensive service around Washington, D.C., in late 1861, during Major General George McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign from March to August 1862, and during the First Battle of Fredericksburg (December 13, 1862). The aeronauts gathered information on Confederate troop movements and deployments and made maps of the area. Balloons were also used to direct artillery fire. The sole use of a balloon in the western theater occurred on March 25, 1862, during Union operations against Island Number 10 in the Mississippi River. McClellan sent Captain J. H. Steiner of the Balloon Corps and his balloon, the Eagle, west, but Major General Henry W. Halleck, commander of the Department of the Missouri, was not impressed and sent him on to Cairo, Illinois. Steiner then offered his services to Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote, who placed a large barge at Steiner’s disposal for the balloon and its generator. On March 25 Steiner and two others ascended in the Eagle some 500 feet. Haze obscured their vision, but they could see Confederate steamers at the far end of Island Number 10 and no gunboats. An ascent the next day produced information revealing that the Union mortars were overshooting their target; the resulting adjustments in charges led to more satisfactory results. Shortly thereafter, however, Steiner returned to Cairo with the balloon. In February 1863 Lowe was summoned to Washington to testify on the contribution of the Balloon Corps to the war effort. At the time, many were looking to cut costs from the war effort and questioned the efficacy of the Balloon Corps. Lowe was also forced to answer charges of misappropriation of funds. Frustrated, he resigned in May 1863, and Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant disbanded the Balloon Corps later that summer. The Confederacy lacked the resources to sustain a significant balloon program during the war, but it did manage to have balloons available intermittently until early 1863. Lieutenant Colonel Edward Porter Alexander was placed in charge of the Confederate balloon program in Virginia. During the Seven Days’ Campaign (June 25–July 1, 1862), the Confederates carried out numerous aerial observations in their “silk dress” balloon. The balloon was not made from dresses contributed

48 |â•‡ Baltic, CSS

by Confederate women, as the name suggests. Rather, it was composed of multiple silk strips of various hues and patterns purchased in Charleston, South Carolina. The balloon could be inflated only at the Richmond Gas Works and was transported to the front by rail. As the Union Army withdrew back down the peninsula at the end of June 1862, the “silk dress” balloon was moved to the James River, where it was towed by the Confederate steamship Teaser. On July 4, 1862, the Teaser ran aground and Union forces captured the balloon. The Confederates built another balloon in September 1862, but it never saw service and was lost in a storm in February 1863, ending the Confederate balloon program. The largest Civil War balloons were 45 feet in height, not counting the gondola. The largest held 32,000 cubic feet of hydrogen, the smallest about 15,000 cubic feet. The gondola under the balloons could carry one to five men. Lowe also experimented with the use of telegraph wire from the balloons to transmit messages, but too often the wires became tangled. Written messages tied to rocks often proved more efficient. Braving technical problems, enemy artillery and small-arms fire, and the elements, balloonists were able to gather some useful intelligence information and direct artillery fire, although the information provided was not always used to advantage. Despite problems, the manned balloon in effect extended the battlefield and represented an important step forward in aerial reconnaissance. James Scythes and Spencer C. Tucker See also Foote, Andrew Hull; Island Number 10, Battle of; Lincoln, Abraham; Mississippi River

References Christopher, John. Balloons at War: Gasbags, Flying Bombs & Cold War Secrets. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: Tempus Publishing, 2004. Cornish, Joseph Jenkins. The Air Arm of the Confederacy: A History of Origins and Usages of War Balloons by the Southern Armies during the Civil War. Richmond, VA: Civil War Centennial Committee, 1963. Evans, Charles M. War of the Aeronauts: A History of Ballooning in the Civil War. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2002.

Baltic, CSS Confederate ironclad ram intended for the defense of Mobile Bay, Alabama, and the rivers that flowed into it. CSS Baltic was converted from a river towboat built in 1860 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for the Southern Steamship Company. It was acquired by the State of Alabama and converted into an ironclad ram at Mobile and commissioned in May 1862. The Baltic displaced 624 tons, was 186 feet in overall length and 36 feet in beam, and had a depth of 6 feet, 4 inches. Propelled by side-mounted paddle

Bancroft, Georgeâ•‡ | 49

wheels, the ship was capable of five knots speed. Crew complement was 86 officers and sailors. The ship had iron plating forward and was protected by cotton bales aft. Armament consisted of two Dahlgren guns (probably IX-inchers), two 32-pounders, and perhaps two other smaller guns. Lieutenant James D. Johnston was the first commander of the Baltic; he was followed by Lieutenant Charles C. Simms. By all accounts, the Baltic was a failure, unmanageable, slow, and unlivable for the crew. Simms wrote that the ship was “as rotten as punk and as fit to go into action as a mud scow.” Still, it was the only Confederate ironclad operating in Mobile Bay until completion of the Tennessee in 1864. Pronounced unfit for service in February 1863, the Baltic was employed in placing obstacles and torpedoes to prevent the ships of Rear Admiral David G. Farragut’s West Gulf Blockading Squadron from gaining access to Mobile Bay. It was partly dismantled in July 1864, and its armor plating was shifted to CSS Nashville. The Baltic did not take part in the Battle of Mobile Bay on August 5, 1864. It was captured by Union forces in the Tombigbee River at Nanna Hubba Bluff on May 10, 1865, and sold on December 31, 1865. Gary D. Joiner See also Farragut, David Glasgow; Ironclads, Confederate; Johnston, James D.; Mobile, Alabama; Mobile, Siege of; Mobile Bay; Mobile Bay, Battle of; Nashville, CSS, Ironclad; Simms, Charles Carroll; Tennessee, CSS; Torpedoes; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. Still, William N., Jr. Iron Afloat: The Story of the Confederate Armorclads. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1985. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. II, Vol. 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1921. Way, Frederick, Jr. Way’s Packet Directory, 1848–1994. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1994.

Bancroft, George Birth Date: October 3, 1800 Death Date: January 17, 1891 U.S. historian, diplomat, secretary of the navy (1845–1846), and founder of the U.S. Naval Academy. Born on October 3, 1800, in Worcester, Massachusetts, George Bancroft was an exceptional student at Phillips Exeter Academy and at Harvard University. He continued his studies at the University of Göttingen, Germany, where he received a doctorate in 1820.

50 |â•‡ Bancroft, George

Returning to the United States in 1822, Bancroft helped found the Round Hill School at Northampton, Massachusetts, which experimentally applied German pedagogical methods. Unsuccessful at this enterprise, Bancroft increasingly focused his energies on literature and history. In 1834 he published the first volume of his History of the United States, which he completed in nine more volumes over the next 30 years. Bancroft strongly supported the Democratic Party and became active in Massachusetts politics. In 1844, although he lost his own race for the Massachusetts governorship, he campaigned vigorously for James K. Polk and his policies of territorial expansion. When Polk was elected president, Bancroft was rewarded with an appointment as secretary of the navy. Assuming his duties in March 1845, Bancroft set out to economize, rationalize, and professionalize the U.S. Navy. A tangle of patronage, congressional parsimony, and conservatism within the officer corps allowed him only partial success. His enduring achievement as secretary of the navy was to establish a school to train naval officers, comparable to the army’s institution at West Point. Making good use of his political connections and bureaucratic skills, Bancroft persuaded the army to transfer Fort Severn, an obsolete installation in Annapolis, Maryland, to the navy. He then selected a faculty and helped design a curriculum. The U.S. Naval Academy began operations in October 1845. As relations with Mexico deteriorated, Bancroft increased U.S. naval strength in the Gulf of Mexico and arranged for a squadron to be off the coast of California in the event of war. When war came, the naval movements in the Gulf and the Pacific succeeded as Bancroft had anticipated, but he was disillusioned by the political divisiveness the conflict provoked in the United States and frustrated by his lack of time for scholarship. In September 1846 Bancroft eagerly accepted Polk’s offer of the ambassadorship to Great Britain. Upon his return to the United States in 1849, he continued work on his History and supported the northern Democrats’ free soil Unionism. When the Civil War began, he initially doubted Abraham Lincoln’s capability, but eventually gave him enthusiastic support. In 1865 he was chosen as Lincoln’s official eulogist. In 1867 President Andrew Johnson appointed Bancroft ambassador to Prussia, a post he held until 1874. He thereafter settled in Washington, D.C., and enjoyed years of recognition and veneration as one of the nation’s leading intellectual figures. He died in Washington on January 17, 1891. John A. Hutcheson Jr. See also Gulf of Mexico; Lincoln, Abraham; Naval Academy, United States; Navy, U.S.

References Bancroft, J. Jack. “George Bancroft.” In American Secretaries of the Navy, 2 vols., edited by Paolo E. Coletta, 217–229. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1980. Handlin, Lilian. George Bancroft: The Intellectual as Democrat. New York: Harper and Row, 1984.

Baron de Kalb, USSâ•‡ | 51

Barney, Joseph Nicholson Birth Date: 1818 Death Date: 1899 Confederate Navy officer. Born in Maryland in 1818, Joseph Nicholson Barney received a midshipman’s warrant in the U.S. Navy on June 30, 1835. He was promoted to passed midshipman on June 22, 1841; to master on March 22, 1847; and to lieutenant on August 5, 1847. He resigned his commission on June 4, 1861, and was commissioned a lieutenant in the Confederate Navy on July 2, 1862. Assigned command of the steamer CSS Jamestown in the James River Squadron, Barney took part in the Battle of Hampton Roads on March 8–9, 1862. He then fought in the Battle of Drewry’s Bluff, Virginia, on May 15. After commanding CSS Harriet Lane, Barney, who was promoted to commander on April 29, 1863, was ordered to Europe, where in September 1863 he relieved Commander John N. Maffitt as commander of the Confederate commerce raider Florida at Brest, France, and completed repairs on the ship. He then fell ill and was unable to take the ship to sea, being himself relieved on January 9, 1864, by Lieutenant Charles M. Morris. During 1864–1865 Barney was a Confederate naval agent in Europe. Returning to the United States after the war, he took the oath of allegiance in September 1865. Barney died in Virginia in 1899. Spencer C. Tucker See also Bulloch, James Dunwody; Drewry’s Bluff, First Battle of; Florida, CSS; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Harriet Lane, USS; James River; James River Squadron, CSA; Maffitt, John Newland

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Coski, John M. Capital Navy: The Men, Ships and Operations of the James River Squadron. Campbell, CA: Savas, 1996. Owsley, Frank L., Jr. The C.S.S. Florida: Her Building and Operations. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1965. Register of Officers of the Confederate States Navy, 1861–1865: As Compiled and Revised by the Office of Naval Records and Library, United States Navy Department, 1931, from All Available Data. With a new introduction by John M. Carroll. Mattituck, NY: J. M. Carroll, 1981. [Originally published by the Naval Record and Library, U.S. Navy Department, in 1898 and revised in 1931.]

Baron de Kalb, USS One of seven Cairo- or City-class Union ironclad gunboats built for the U.S. Navy in 1861, and originally named the St. Louis. Designed by Samuel R. Pook and built

52 |â•‡ Baron de Kalb, USS

One of the seven Cairo- or City-class ironclads, the Saint Louis, later renamed the Baron de Kalb, was one of the first U.S. Navy river ironclads and saw extensive service on Western waters during the war. (Library of Congress)

by James B. Eads, the ship was commissioned in January 1862. The Cairo-class ships were often referred to as “Pook Turtles” for their rectangular casemates and sloped sides that gave them a turtlelike appearance. The St. Louis displaced 512 tons; was 175 feet in length overall and 51 feet, 2 inches in beam; and had a draft of 6 feet. It was propelled by a center wheel driven by two steam engines, giving it a top speed of 5.5 knots. Its crew complement totaled 251 officers and men. Although underpowered, these river ironclads were heavily armed, although they carried fewer than the 20 guns originally planned (probably as a consequence of the weight of their iron plating). In January 1862 each mounted 13 guns: 3 8-inch smoothbores, 4 42-pounder coast defense rifled guns (7-inch bore), and 6 32-pounder rifled guns. Three of the guns fired forward. Each gunboat was protected with 2.5 inches of armor on the casemate and 1.25 inches on the conical pilothouse forward. The St. Louis saw action at Fort Henry, Tennessee (February 6, 1862), and at Fort Donelson, Tennessee (February 14), when it served as Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote’s flagship and was disabled, followed by actions against Island Number 10 (March 15–April 7), Fort Pillow, Tennessee (April–June), and the Battle of Memphis (June 6, 1862). It was renamed the Baron de Kalb on September 18. It took part in other operations, including the expeditions up the White River, with the capture of Fort Hindman, Arkansas (January 10–11, 1863), and the Yazoo Pass Expedition and attack on Fort Pemberton in the Tallahatchie River (March 11–23, 1863). The Baron de Kalb struck a mine and sank one mile below Yazoo City on July 13, 1863. Gary D. Joiner

Barron, Samuelâ•‡ | 53

See also Amphibious Warfare; Cairo-Class River Ironclads; Eads, James Buchanan; Foote, Andrew Hull; Fort Donelson, Battle of; Fort Henry, Battle of; Fort Hindman, Battle of; Fort Pillow, Tennessee; Island Number 10, Battle of; Ironclads, Union; Memphis, First Battle of; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Riverine Warfare; White River Expedition, U.S. Navy; Yazoo Pass Expedition; Yazoo River

References Joiner, Gary D. Mr. Lincoln’s Brown Water Navy: The Mississippi Squadron. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007. Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Barron, Samuel Birth Date: November 28, 1809 Death Date: February 26, 1888 Confederate Navy officer. Samuel Barron was born on November 28, 1809, in Hampton, Virginia, the son of a noted navy commodore. Barron secured a warrant as a midshipman in the U.S. Navy at age two on January 1, 1812, presumably because his father then commanded the Norfolk (Gosport) Navy Yard. He entered active service as a midshipman in 1820. Barron was promoted to lieutenant on March 3, 1827, and to commander on July 15, 1847. He commanded the frigate John Adams from 1849 to 1854 and was promoted to captain on September 14, 1855. Barron commanded the steam frigate Wabash during 1858–1859, and in 1860 he became chief of the Bureau of Detail in the Navy Department. During the first month or so of Abraham Lincoln’s administration in the early spring of 1861, Barron allegedly tried to wrest control of the Navy Department from Secretary Gideon Welles. With the secession of Virginia from the Union, Barron resigned his commission, which Welles refused to accept, dismissing him instead on April 22, 1861. Barron then became head of Virginia’s Office of Naval Detail and Equipment and shortly thereafter was commissioned in the Confederate Navy as a captain. In June he was placed in charge of the Bureau of Orders and Detail, which post he held until July 20. In this position Barron recruited officers, filled ship complements, and established courts of inquiry. Barron actively lobbied Confederate secretary of the navy Stephen R. Mallory for a naval command, and only a month after his first assignment Mallory gave Barron charge of the naval defenses of North Carolina and Virginia. During the Union assault at Hatteras Inlet (August 28–29, 1861), commanded by U.S. Navy flag officer Silas H. Stringham after the fall of Confederate Fort Clark, Barron led some 230 Confederate officers and men to the island in the Confederate Navy

54 |â•‡ Barron, Samuel

side-wheeler gunboat Winslow to bolster the defenders of Fort Hatteras. At the invitation of the fort’s commander, Major W. S. G. Andrews, Barron assumed command. Barron wanted to attack and retake Fort Clark, but when additional men failed to arrive, he dropped that plan in favor of simply strengthening Fort Hatteras. Stringham’s warships opened a heavy shelling of Fort Hatteras on August 29, employing their longer-range rifled guns to which the Confederates, with only shorter-range smoothbore guns, could not make effective reply. After a Union shell penetrated the fort’s ventilator shaft next to the magazine while Barron was meeting with his officers to consider the situation, Barron decided to surrender. Barron was held as a prisoner of war for 11 months at Fort Warren in Boston Harbor before being exchanged. He then advised Mallory on naval strategy before being reassigned to command Confederate Navy forces in Virginia. In the summer of 1863 Mallory assigned Flag Officer Barron command of the newly formed Confederate European Squadron. He was to have commanded what Mallory hoped would be a squadron of British- and French-built ironclads. But with the shift in the war’s fortunes and under heavy pressure from the United States, the British government seized what would have been CSS North Carolina and Mississippi, the so-called Laird Rams that were supposedly being built for the Egyptian government. Barron, now operating from Paris, had no better luck with the French government. Unsuccessful in securing additional cruisers in Europe, Barron’s duties became simply the supervision of Confederate naval officers awaiting assignment to CSS Florida and Georgia, then in operation. Barron did hope to raise his pendant over two ironclads under construction for the Confederacy at Bordeaux. Although the French government blocked the sale, when the Danes refused one of them the French builders managed to transfer it to the Confederacy. It was commissioned CSS Stonewall at sea in January 1865 but made it only to Havana, Cuba, by the end of the war. Barron resigned his commission on February 28, 1865, before the formal end of the war, and returned to the United States. He then retired to his farm in Essex County, Virginia, where he died on February 26, 1888. Joseph Heim and Spencer C. Tucker See also Buchanan, Franklin; Bulloch, James Dunwody; Florida, CSS; Georgia, CSS, Commerce Raider; Hatteras Inlet, Union Assault on; Laird Rams; Lincoln, Abraham; Mallory, Stephen Russell; Norfolk Navy Yard; Stonewall, CSS; Strategy, Confederate Naval; Stringham, Silas Horton; Welles, Gideon

References Bulloch, James Dunwody. The Secret Service of the Confederate States in Europe, or How the Confederate Cruisers Were Equipped. New York: Modern Library, 2001. Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Merli, Frank J. Great Britain and the Confederate Navy, 1861–1865. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004.

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Owsley, Frank Lawrence. King Cotton Diplomacy: Foreign Relations of the Confederate States of America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1959. Register of Officers of the Confederate States Navy, 1861–1865: As Compiled and Revised by the Office of Naval Records and Library, United States Navy Department, 1931, from All Available Data. With a new introduction by John M. Carroll. Mattituck, NY: J. M. Carroll, 1981. [Originally published by the Naval Record and Library, U.S. Navy Department, in 1898 and revised in 1931.] Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Baton Rouge, Battle of Event Date: August 5, 1862 Failed Confederate attempt on August 5, 1862, to recapture the capital of Louisiana from Union forces. On the morning of August 5, a portion of the Confederate garrison at Vicksburg, Mississippi, numbering some 2,500 men and commanded by Major General John C. Breckinridge, attacked a Union force of approximately equal size commanded by Brigadier General Thomas Williams at Baton Rouge. Breckinridge had marched his men more than 60 miles to Baton Rouge from the rail line at Camp Moore, Louisiana, covering the last 10 miles at night so as to arrive at the city before dawn. His men, many of whom were veterans of the Battle of Shiloh (April 6–7, 1862), thus arrived somewhat fatigued. Williams’s 3,300 men, mostly recruits from New England and the upper Midwest, had spent their first summer in the South near Vicksburg in a failed attempt to capture that city, before retiring back downriver. Perhaps half the men in Williams’s command were on the sick rolls with fever, although many voluntarily returned to their units to take part in the battle, making the two sides approximately equal in strength. Williams could rely on several powerful Union gunboats moored at the city docks that protected the river approach to the city and were thus in position to provide artillery support if needed. Despite the Confederates having been discovered by Union sentries on the night of August 4, the battle opened as Breckinridge planned early the next day. The first shots were fired about 4:30 a.m. The Confederates enjoyed initial success, advancing in a heavy fog and driving the Union defenders back into the city itself, where some civilians joined the Confederate troops in attacking the retreating Union troops. The Union troops then fell back to the river under the protection of the Union gunboats. In the fighting Williams was killed, and Colonel Thomas Cahill assumed command. The Confederates then paused to await the arrival from Vicksburg of the ironclad ram Arkansas, which was to support the Confederate land assault and eliminate the Union gunboats. The Arkansas experienced engine problems in its descent of the Mississippi, however. Its engines broke down several times but were repaired. They failed

56 |â•‡ Bell, Charles Heyer

again, and the ship ran ashore about eight miles above the city just as the land battle began and at the same time as the Union ironclad Essex was advancing to engage it. The ship’s commander, Lieutenant Henry K. Stevens, ordered the crew ashore and the Arkansas set on fire. The burning Confederate ironclad then drifted downriver for about an hour before it exploded and sank just above the city. Had the Arkansas’s engines been in good working order and able to join the battle, the outcome of the battle might well have been different, but with no prospect of naval support and his men stalled by the heavy guns of the Union ships, Breckenridge decided to withdraw. The battle was over by about 10:00 a.m. Casualties in the Battle of Baton Rouge were approximately equal. The Union side suffered 84 dead and 299 wounded or missing, while Confederate losses were 84 dead and 372 wounded or missing. Among the Confederate dead was A. H. Todd, half-brother of First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln. While the battle was a tactical defeat for Confederate forces, Union forces nevertheless evacuated the city 16 days after the battle and proceeded to New Orleans. Meanwhile, the Confederates fortified Port Hudson. From Port Hudson north to Vicksburg the Confederates commanded a 100-mile stretch of the Mississippi River, including the mouth of the Red River and therefore the resources of the Trans-Mississippi region. The Confederacy held this stretch of the river for almost another full year. Christopher Rein See also Arkansas, CSS; Cairo-Class River Ironclads; Essex, USS; Farragut, David Glasgow; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Port Hudson, Louisiana, Action at; Red River; Riverine Warfare; Vicksburg, Mississippi, West Gulf Squadron Passage of; Vicksburg Campaign

References Irwin, Richard B. History of the Nineteenth Army Corps. 1892; reprint, Baton Rouge: Elliott’s Book Shop Press, 1985. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. Winters, John D. The Civil War in Louisiana. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1963.

Bell, Charles Heyer Birth Date: August 13, 1798 Death Date: February 19, 1875 U.S. Navy officer. Born in New York City on August 13, 1798, Charles Heyer Bell received a midshipman’s warrant on June 18, 1812. He was first assigned to the frigate President under Captain Stephen Decatur Jr. and three years later again

Bell, Charles Heyerâ•‡ | 57

served with Decatur in the frigate Macedonian in the war with Algiers. Promoted to lieutenant on March 28, 1820, he commanded the Ferret in the so-called Mosquito Fleet, which was involved in the suppression of piracy in the West Indies, when that schooner capsized in a gale off Cuba on February 4, 1825. Nine crew members died, and Bell and the remainder of the men clung to wreckage for some 21 hours until they were rescued. During 1839–1840 Bell commanded the brig Dolphin in the African Squadron. His strong antislavery views found their way into the press, and he helped shape the U.S. position in the 1843 agreement with Britain regarding patrols by the navies of both nations to arrest the African slave trade. He was promoted to commander on September 10, 1840. After three years without orders, he oversaw the return of the Yorktown to service in 1844 and then commanded it in the African Squadron, his third tour there. Bell was promoted to captain on August 12, 1854. At the beginning of the Civil War, Bell had been in the navy for 48 years. He had spent almost 21 years at sea, and 10 years with assignments ashore. In a navy topheavy with officers, he had passed the remaining years ashore awaiting assignment. When the war began, Bell was the flag officer commanding the Mediterranean Squadron, with his flag in the screw sloop Richmond. Upon returning to the United States in early July 1861, Bell served on the Retirement Board during October– December, determining which officers of the navy were to be retired, including himself on December 21 because of his age. He was promoted to commodore on the retired list on July 16, 1862. Nonetheless, in January 1862 Bell was assigned as flag officer in command of the small U.S. Navy Pacific Squadron, of which he had charge until October 25, 1864. In May 1865 he was appointed commandant of the New York (Brooklyn) Navy Yard, which command he held for the next three years. He was promoted to rear admiral on the retired list on July 25, 1866. He died in New Brunswick, New Jersey, on February 19, 1875. Spencer C. Tucker See also Brooklyn Navy Yard; Richmond, USS

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Gilliland, C. Herbert. Voyage to a Thousand Cares: Master’s Mate Nate Lawrence with the African Squadron, 1844–1846. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2004. Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vols. 1 and 3. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1894, 1896.

58 |â•‡ Bell, Henry Haywood

Bell, Henry Haywood Birth Date: April 13, 1808 Death Date: 1868 U.S. Navy officer. Born in North Carolina on April 13, 1808, Henry Haywood Bell was appointed to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1819 and was briefly a cadet in the class of 1826 before receiving a midshipman’s warrant on August 4, 1823. He was advanced to passed midshipman on March 23, 1829; to lieutenant on February 3, 1831; and to commander on August 12, 1854. During this time he saw service in the schooner Grampus, which was involved in the suppression of piracy in the West Indies, and he also served in the East India Squadron under Captain Andrew H. Foote, commanding the screw frigate San Jacinto during the capture and destruction of the barrier forts near Guangzhou (Canton), China, in November 1856. At the beginning of 1861 Bell was serving as an ordnance officer at the West Point Foundry, Cold Springs, New York. At that point, Bell had 19 years of service at sea and 8 years in shore assignments, with the remainder of his 37-year-long career passed in awaiting orders from a navy that had too many officers. Although he was born in the South, Bell remained loyal to the Union at the start of the Civil War. He was on ordnance duty at the Washington Navy Yard until January 1862, when he became the fleet captain in the West Gulf Coast Blockading Squadron under Flag Officer David G. Farragut. Bell commanded the Third Division of Union ships that ran past Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip and captured New Orleans that April. Bell was promoted to commodore on July 16, 1862, and, while Farragut was on extended absence, was acting commander of the West Gulf Coast Blockading Squadron, with his flag in the screw sloop Brooklyn from August 2, 1863, until January 22, 1864. Bell served on ordnance duties at the New York (Brooklyn) Navy Yard during several months in 1864. After the end of the war Bell was assigned command of the new East India Squadron in July 1865. Promoted to rear admiral on July 25, 1867, Bell was placed on the retired list on April 12, 1867. His replacement, Rear Admiral Stephen C. Rowan, had not yet relieved him, and he was still in command of the squadron, when he drowned after falling from the launch of his flagship, the screw sloop Hartford, while trying to enter the Osaka River, Japan. Spencer C. Tucker See also Brooklyn, USS; Brooklyn Navy Yard; Farragut, David Glasgow; Foote, Andrew Hull; Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s Run Past; Hartford, USS; Rowan, Stephen Clegg; Washington Navy Yard; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969.

Belmont, Battle ofâ•‡ | 59

Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 18. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1904. U.S. Navy Department, Naval History Division. Civil War Naval Chronology, 1861– 1865. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971.

Belmont, Battle of Event Date: November 7, 1861 Important early battle between Union and Confederate forces on the Mississippi River. On November 1, 1861, Major General John C. Frémont, commander of the newly created Department of the West at St. Louis, Missouri, ordered his subordinate Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant, commanding the Southeast Missouri Military District (later the Cairo Military District), to carry out a demonstration against the Confederate fortifications at Columbus, Kentucky, on the Mississippi River. Known as the “Confederate Gibraltar,” these fortifications were the most powerful Confederate works in the western theater. Frémont hoped thereby to mask a Union effort in southeastern Missouri and prevent Major General Leonidas Polk from sending reinforcements there from Columbus. Countermanded, this order was renewed on November 5. The next day, November 6, Grant took 3,114 men (five infantry regiments, two cavalry companies, and two artillery pieces) down the Mississippi in six transports escorted by the timberclad gunboats Lexington and Tyler. Brigadier General John McClernand’s Illinois Brigade of three regiments constituted the bulk of Grant’s land force. Grant apparently had no precise plans when he set out, although one of his biographers contends that he clearly intended to fight rather than merely stage a demonstration. At the same time, Grant certainly knew that Columbus was too powerful for him to assault. Early on November 7 Grant landed 2,500 men three miles above Belmont, Missouri. He planned to attack a Confederate force of 2,700 men encamped at Belmont, Missouri, across the Mississippi from Columbus. Colonel James C. Tappan commanded the Confederates at Belmont. His force numbered one infantry regiment, a cavalry battalion, and an artillery battery. The Union troops went ashore at Hunter’s Farm, then moved south to attack Belmont. At Grant’s request, meanwhile, Commander Henry Walke, who had command of the two timberclads, took them to bombard Columbus as a diversion. Hearing the shooting on land, Polk sent reinforcements across the river, protected by the lower batteries at Columbus. Brigadier General Gideon Pillow commanded

60 |â•‡ Belmont, Battle of

this force of four infantry regiments numbering 2,500 men and assumed command of the Confederate forces at Belmont upon his arrival. As the gunboats circled and exchanged broadsides with the heavy Confederate guns in the upper batteries at Columbus, Grant’s force defeated the Confederates at Belmont. But when they gained the Confederate Camp Johnston, the Union troops stopped to loot. This enabled the Confederates to regroup. Meanwhile, Walke kept his timberclads moving constantly to avoid their being hit. His gunboats engaged the Columbus batteries three times, and he was able to take advantage of Confederate overshooting to close to within 450 yards. Still, most of the Union rounds fell short, and the only serious damage to the Confederate side occurred when one of their guns burst. Before too long the Confederate batteries had the range, and Walke removed his gunboats, but not before a 24-pounder shot entered the Tyler, decapitating a seaman and wounding two others. Walke then brought the timberclads back to the landing. Polk, meanwhile, had sent five additional regiments across the river under Brigadier General Frank Cheatham. These brought Confederate strength against Grant’s force up to some 5,000 men. Seeing the additional Southern troops, Grant ordered his men to fall back to the landing, but it took time to get them organized. Some of Grant’s now outnumbered men had to cut their way out, and Grant himself barely escaped capture. As the last Union troops hurriedly boarded their transports, the Confederates attacked in strength, only to be met by withering grape and canister fire from the heavy guns on the two Union gunboats. The Battle of Belmont was costly for both sides. It claimed between 550 and 600 Union casualties (about 90 dead and between 320 and 400 wounded, of whom more than 100 were taken prisoner). Confederate losses were higher: 641 (105 dead, 419 wounded, and 117 missing, a number of whom were taken prisoner). Each side claimed victory. Polk referred to the battle as “this signal triumph of our arms and the defeat of the machinations of our enemies.” He attributed the success to “the favoring providence of Almighty God.” Belmont was not an engagement Grant could point to with particular pride. Indeed, many of his officers and men saw it as a blunder reflecting poor generalship. The Confederates had won the battlefield, but Polk had failed to capture Grant and his force. Doing so would have had great consequences for the struggle in the West and the entire war. The Northern press, nonetheless, celebrated Belmont as a victory. Certainly it delighted Lincoln, who saw in Grant a general willing to fight. Hardly the beginning of a great thrust down the Mississippi as pictured in the Northern press, Belmont did help bring about Union control of Missouri and provided valuable combat experience for Grant’s troops. It also spread a near panic in the South over possible future Union amphibious operations. Polk requested additional men and artillery and was now reluctant to heed calls by General Albert Sidney Johnston, Confederate commander in the West, for manpower. In this sense, Belmont was perhaps a critical diversion for

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the subsequent Union operations against Fort Henry and Fort Donelson. Certainly Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote, commanding the Union gunboats in the West, had every reason to be pleased; his timberclads had demonstrated that they could speedily move both men and supplies; operate with surprise and flexibility; and, at minimum cost to themselves, provide effective artillery support for troops ashore. Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Anaconda Strategy; Foote, Andrew Hull; Fort Donelson, Battle of; Fort Henry, Battle of; Lexington, USS; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Riverine Warfare; Timberclads; Tyler, USS; Walke, Henry

References Cheairs, Nathaniel. The Battle of Belmont: Grant Strikes South. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991. Polk, William M. “General Polk and the Battle of Belmont.” In Battles and Leaders of the Civil War: Being for the Most Part Contributions by Union and Confederate Officers, 4 vols., edited by Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence Clough Buel, I:348–357. 1883; reprint, Secaucus, NJ: Castle, n.d. McFeely, William S. Grant: A Biography. New York: Norton, 1981.

Benton, USS U.S. Navy river ironclad. In addition to the seven ironclads contracted for with army quartermaster general Colonel Montgomery Meigs, Western Department commander Major General John C. Frémont authorized James B. Eads to purchase and convert into ironclads two snagboats (powerful river craft used to extract obstructions from the western rivers). These two were the New Era (commissioned as the Essex) and the large catamaran Submarine No. 7 of 633 tons, which Frémont renamed the Benton in honor of his father-in-law, Thomas Hart Benton. Acquired in November 1861 the Benton was rebuilt at St. Louis, Missouri, and commissioned in February 1862. It had a rectangular wooden casemate with sloping sides, length of 202 feet, breadth of 72 feet, and depth of 9 feet. It was propelled by a center wheel powered by two steam engines and was capable of 5.5 knots. Crew complement was 176 men. The Benton was protected by 2.5 inches of iron plate. It mounted 16 guns: 2 IX-inch smoothbore Dahlgren guns, 7 42-pounder muzzle-loading rifled guns, and 7 32-pounder smoothbores. Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote, commander of the Western Flotilla, who had earlier opposed its purchase, made the Benton his flagship and believed it to be the most powerful of the early river ironclads and equal of three of the Cairo-class gunboats. The Benton took part in virtually all the actions on the Mississippi, from the Siege of Island Number 10 (March–April 1862) to operations against Vicksburg in

62 |â•‡ Black Hawk, USS

1863. It also participated in the Red River Expedition (March–May 1864). Decommissioned in July 1865, it was sold in November and broken up. Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Cairo-Class River Ironclads; Eads, James Buchanan; Essex, USS; Foote, Andrew Hull; Island Number 10, Battle of; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Red River; Red River Campaign; Riverine Warfare; Vicksburg Campaign

References Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. Tucker, Spencer C. Andrew Foote: Civil War Admiral on Western Waters. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Black Hawk, USS The Black Hawk was the flagship of the U.S. Navy’s Mississippi Squadron. Built at New Albany, Indiana, and launched in 1857, the ship was acquired by the navy on November 23, 1862, and commissioned two weeks later, on December 6. Originally known as the New Uncle Sam, it was renamed Black Hawk on December 13, 1862. Weighing 902 tons, the Black Hawk was a side-wheeler steamer, 260 feet in length and 45 feet, 6 inches, in beam, with a draft of 6 feet (dimensions also reported as 275 feet by 38 feet by 6 feet, 6 inches). Typical of the large so-called “Tinclads,” it had a light armor protection of metal plate less than an inch thick, which was capable of protecting only against small-arms fire. It was unique in having striped painted sides. The Black Hawk had a crew complement of 141 men. It was armed in February 1864 with two 30-pounder rifled Parrott guns, eight 24-pounder Dahlgren smoothbore boat howitzers, and three 12-pounder Dahlgren rifled boat howitzers. The Black Hawk first served as Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant’s headquarters in the Union attacks on forts Henry and Donelson in Tennessee. It then served in the Mississippi Squadron as the flagship of rear admirals David D. Porter and Samuel P. Lee. Among its battles and campaigns were operations around Vicksburg, Mississippi (December 1862); the expedition up the White River and capture of Fort Hindman (January 1863); bombardment of Haynes’ Bluff, Mississippi (April–May 1863); the Siege of Vicksburg (May–July 1863); and the Red River Expedition (March–May 1864). The Black Hawk sank near Cairo, Illinois, on April 22, 1865, after the explosion of a magazine. The wreck was raised and the ship sold at St. Louis, Missouri, in April 1867, with the government receiving one-fourth of the proceeds. Spencer C. Tucker

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See also Amphibious Warfare; Eads, James Buchanan; Fort Donelson, Battle of; Fort Henry, Battle of; Fort Hindman, Battle of; Haynes’ Bluff, Mississippi, Union Demonstration at; Lee, Samuel Phillips; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Porter, David Dixon; Red River Campaign; Riverine Warfare; Tinclads; Vicksburg Campaign; White River Expedition, U.S. Navy

References Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. II, Vol. 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1921.

Blake, George Smith Birth Date: March 5, 1802 Death Date: June 24, 1871 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, on March 5, 1802, George Smith Blake received a midshipman’s warrant on January 1, 1818. He was serving in the schooner Alligator when it was attacked by the Portuguese ship Marianna Flora off the Cape Verde Islands on November 5, 1821. The Alligator won the engagement, and Blake served as executive officer of the Portuguese ship in its passage to the United States. Blake was promoted to lieutenant on March 3, 1827, and cruised in the schooner Grampus in the suppression of piracy in the West Indies. In 1832 Blake surveyed Narragansett Bay before assignment to the Philadelphia Navy Yard in 1833. From 1837 to 1848 Blake was involved in the U.S. Coast Survey. Blake was promoted to commander on February 27, 1847, and assigned to the Bureau of Construction and Repair. From 1849 to 1852 he was fleet captain of the Mediterranean Squadron. Promoted to captain on September 14, 1855, he was assigned to Hoboken, New Jersey, in connection with the construction of the Stevens Battery. Blake was the son-in-law of Commodore James Barron. Appointed superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, in September 1857, Blake was still serving in that capacity at the beginning of the Civil War. In a naval career spanning 42 years, he had served almost 17 years at sea and 18 years ashore; 7 years had been spent awaiting orders in a service with too many officers. In early May 1861, with the Naval Academy largely defenseless and having learned that the Confederates hoped to secure control of the U.S. frigate Constitution, which was serving as the academy’s training ship, Blake carried out the transfer of the academy to Newport, Rhode Island, where it remained throughout the war. He is widely credited with having saved the Constitution. Blake was promoted to commodore on July 16, 1862. He remained as superintendent of the Naval Academy until September 9, 1865, when he was succeeded

64 |â•‡ Blockade Board

by Rear Admiral David D. Porter. Blake was a lighthouse inspector during 1866– 1869, residing at Boston. He died at Longwood, Massachusetts, on June 24, 1871. Spencer C. Tucker See also Coast Survey, U.S.; Naval Academy, United States; Philadelphia Navy Yard; Porter, David Dixon; Stevens Battery

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Sweetman, Jack. The U.S. Naval Academy: An Illustrated History. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1979. Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001.

Blockade Board Union planning board established at the beginning of the war at the urging of Professor Alexander Dallas Bache. Formally known as the Commission of Conference but usually referred to as the Blockade Board or the Strategy Board, it was charged with devising strategies for implementing the naval blockade against the Confederacy. Bache, an 1825 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, was superintendent of the U.S. Coast Survey at the beginning of the Civil War. The Coast Survey was the only organization with detailed nautical maps of the U.S. coastline and its major inland rivers. Once President Abraham Lincoln declared a naval blockade of the seceded states on April 19, 1861, the Coast Survey was inundated with requests from the Navy Department for these charts. Bache engaged his friend Commander Charles H. Davis and suggested a joint military board to discuss coastal operations. U.S. Navy chief clerk Gustavus V. Fox, who would be appointed assistant secretary of the navy on August 1, 1861, and Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles readily embraced this idea. The board was officially organized on June 27, 1861. It met almost daily throughout the summer at the Smithsonian Institution. The board had four members: Captain Samuel F. Du Pont (president); Commander Charles H. Davis (secretary); Major John G. Barnard (representing the Army Corps of Engineers); and Bache. Secretary Welles emphasized that an effective blockade must be instituted from the Chesapeake Bay to Key West, Florida, and from Key West to southern Texas. Fox reported the board’s initial findings at a cabinet meeting on July 25. Ultimately, the board rendered six reports: three on the Atlantic Coast and three on the Gulf Coast. Steamships would be necessary in maintaining an effective blockade; a mid-19th-century steamer burned a ton of coal for 5–7 hours of steaming. Even while standing still on station, the ship’s coal fires had to be kept burning in order

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to get steam up quickly in order to chase down a blockade-runner. A naval blockade would thus require two or more ports as fuel and maintenance depots. Coaling stations, which did not exist between Hampton Roads, Virginia, and Key West, Florida, would have to be established. The extensive Confederate coastline, which posed such a problem for Union naval forces to blockade, presented an opportunity for the U.S. Navy. The coastline was far too long for Confederate forces to be able to defend everywhere at once, especially as Southern land units were already stretched thin to meet an anticipated invasion from the north. Indeed, the South had been forced to confine its defensive efforts along the coast to a half dozen key points. It would thus be relatively easy for Union forces to attack from the sea at selected locations and secure these bases. Indeed, the problem for the Union would come only after the establishment of these enclaves, when it sought to expand them and to attack the principal, well-defended Confederate ports. Securing the coastal enclaves would bring a number of advantages for the North. Not only would they provide bases and coaling stations at shorter ranges for the blockading warships, but the enclaves could also be jumping-off points for future advances inland. It must be pointed out, however, that the initial Union coastal objectives were selected not for access inland but rather for their ability to defend against attack from inland. Taking into account the major Confederate Atlantic seaboard ports of Wilmington, Charleston, and Savannah, the Blockade Board’s initial recommendations for bases were Bull’s Bay, north of Charleston, South Carolina, and Fernandina, north of Jacksonville, Florida. These were subsequently dropped in favor of Hatteras Inlet (one of several gaps in 200 miles of North Carolina barrier islands); and Port Royal, South Carolina (approximately midway between Charleston and Savannah). The principal Confederate Gulf Coast ports were Mobile and New Orleans, and the board recommended that bases be secured in the Gulf at Ship Island, near Biloxi, Mississippi, and at Head of the Passes, Louisiana. The board also proposed the sinking of old ships and hulks to block access in certain channels to Confederate ports, such as Charleston. In addition, the panel suggested dividing command of the Atlantic Blockading Squadron into two more manageable squadrons; it recommended the same for the Gulf Coast Blockading Squadron. Although the board did not specify the number of ships and men that would be required for an effective blockade, it had addressed the fundamental problems of logistics and command structure. The success of the Union Blockade Board prompted Welles to use committees to solve other problems throughout the war. The navy adopted the new command structure and began cooperating with the War Department to plan the amphibious operations. Welles and Fox recommended that the chairman of the board, Captain Du Pont, command what was projected to be the largest U.S. Navy amphibious operations since the landing at Veracruz in the Mexican-American War. William E. Whyte III and Spencer C. Tucker

66 |â•‡ Blockade of the Confederacy See also Amphibious Warfare; Anaconda Strategy; Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Bache, Alexander Dallas; Blockade of the Confederacy; Blockade-Runners; Coast Survey, U.S.; Davis, Charles Henry; Du Pont, Samuel Francis; East Gulf Blockading Squadron; Fox, Gustavus Vasa; Gulf Blockading Squadron; Lincoln, Abraham; Navy, U.S.; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Stone Fleets; Welles, Gideon; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Browning, Robert M., Jr. From Cape Charles to Cape Fear: The North Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1993. Browning, Robert M., Jr. Success Is All That Was Expected: The South Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War. Dulles, VA: Brassey’s, 2002. Taaffe, Stephen R. Commanding Lincoln’s Navy: Union Naval Leadership during the Civil War. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2009. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. Weddle, Kevin J. “The Blockade Board of 1861 and Union Naval Strategy.” Civil War History 48 (2002): 123–142.

Blockade of the Confederacy On April 19, 1861, President Abraham Lincoln announced a naval blockade of the Southern coast from South Carolina to Texas. On April 27 he issued a second proclamation extending the blockade to Virginia and North Carolina. To help man the required ships, the president called on May 3 for the enlistment of an additional 18,000 seamen. In implementing the blockade, the Union grappled with a fundamental contradiction. The North maintained throughout the war that the Confederate States of America did not exist—that the U.S. government faced merely a domestic insurrection. If that was indeed the case, foreign governments had no justification for recognizing or aiding the Confederacy. But at the same time, if the Confederate States did not exist, could the Union legally blockade its own southern coastline? U.S. secretary of the navy Gideon Welles, taking such legal complications seriously, personally opposed a “blockade,” favoring instead a policy of “closing” Southern ports, a traditional technique in times of domestic insurrection. Yet for practical military, political, and diplomatic reasons, President Lincoln and Secretary of State William H. Seward chose to ignore the legal technicalities of the issue and continued to maintain both positions—that the Confederate States did not in fact exist but that the Union could blockade the coastline. Lincoln’s proclamation created practical problems for both the Union and Confederate governments. With only a handful of ships available to blockade some 3,000 miles of Southern coastline (much more if the inland waterways are included), the Union faced the challenge of turning a paper blockade into a real

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Union blockading warships off Charleston, South Carolina. The three ships are, from left to right, the Vandalia, Arthur Middleton, and the Roanoke. (Library of Congress)

one. Secretary Welles disbanded overseas squadrons and called home their ships. He also proceeded to buy or commandeer virtually every steamer available. These were soon armed with a few guns and converted into blockaders. At the same time, he instituted a massive shipbuilding program that bore fruit later. Welles organized the ships into three squadrons: the Home Squadron, based at Fortress Monroe; the Coast Blockading Squadron (soon redesignated as the Atlantic Blockading Squadron), with the Potomac Flotilla (centered on the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers and charged with the defense of Washington); and the Gulf Coast Blockading Squadron. The Atlantic Blockading Squadron had responsibility for enforcing the blockade all the way from Alexandria, Virginia, to Key West, Florida, a distance of some 1,000 miles. The Gulf Coast Squadron covered the even greater distance from Key West to Brownsville, Texas. Given the vast distances involved, in October 1861 Welles further divided the squadrons. He separated the Atlantic blockaders into two: a North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, responsible for the Virginia and North Carolina coasts, and a South Atlantic Blockading Squadron for the Southern coastline from South Carolina to Key West. In February 1862 Welles also divided the Gulf Coast Blockading Squadron, making four Union blockading squadrons in all. The East Gulf Coast Blockading Squadron patrolled off Florida from Cape Canaveral on the Atlantic coast to St. Andrews Bay on the Gulf Coast. The West Gulf Coast Blockading Squadron had responsibility for the Southern coast from St. Andrews Bay to Brownsville. Few vessels were available at first. Ships returning from foreign station required repairs, and it was many months before the navy was able legally to blockade many Southern ports. At first, single U.S. Navy warships took up station off key Confederate ports. On May 10, 1862, the screw sloop Niagara, just returned from Japan,

68 |â•‡ Blockade of the Confederacy

initiated the blockade of Charleston, while on May 26 the Brooklyn arrived off the Mississippi River, and on June 8 the Mississippi set the blockade of Key West. Confederate president Jefferson Davis embraced a plan, although it was never officially announced as policy, to suspend cotton exports in the mistaken belief that this “Cotton Diplomacy” would encourage British intervention. Southern leaders assumed that the suspension would bring such economic pressure as to force the British government to dispatch warships to assist in breaking the Union blockade. It did not happen. Not only were cotton markets in Egypt and India accessible to Britain but Northern “corn” (grain) was also immensely important to Britain. The South thus missed a great opportunity. Before the Union blockade could become effective, the Confederacy should have rushed all available cotton to European markets in order to purchase arms and manufactured goods. Its gold reserves soon exhausted, the Confederacy reversed its policy, but by then it was too late, for the Union blockade had become much more effective. Blockade-running was triangular, with its three main corners at the South, the West Indies, and Europe (or sometimes even the North itself). Because of its proximity to the Confederacy, Nassau, Bahamas, was the headquarters of blockaderunning operations. Other common destinations included Bermuda, St. Thomas, Havana, Jamaica, and Nova Scotia. Large ships, mostly British, would travel to these destinations, where their cargoes would be offloaded into smaller, faster ships for travel to the South. Major Confederate ports for blockade-runners included Wilmington, North Carolina; Charleston, South Carolina; Savannah, Georgia; Mobile, Alabama; and, especially in the last year of the war when other ports had been closed, Galveston, Texas. Blockade duties were tedious and routine-centered. Union ships had to remain on station in both tropical summer heat and the gales and cold of winter, and they had to contend with operations in unfamiliar coastal shoal waters. Crews also had to be on constant guard against the possibility of a sudden Confederate attack. Each side sought to thwart the other. Signal rockets on the Union side might be countered by false Confederate signals to lure off the blockaders in another direction. Despite the best Union efforts, most blockade-runners made it through. Runs out were safer than runs in, simply because captains had the benefit of knowing the location of the Union ships and could plan accordingly. The most dangerous time to attempt to pass through the blockade was in daylight. If a blockade-runner arrived off the coast in daytime and was sighted by Union warships, the blockaderunner’s escape rested solely on speed. Although few blockade-runners returned substantial profits, the financial rewards could be considerable, even if a ship were ultimately lost. The Ella and Annie, capable of carrying up to 1,300 bales of cotton, made eight trips through the blockade. Combined with profit on inbound cargo, it returned a profit of about $200,000 per round trip. Financial reward remained the chief motivation for blockade-Â�running, and high returns explain why so many people participated in the

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activity. Sailors on blockade duty could hope for prize money from any captures, but the sums realized were generally far less than supposed. Slowly but surely, the number of blockaders increased. By January 1865 the Union Navy had 471 ships with 2,245 guns in the effort. During the course of the war these took a total of 1,149 ships of all types and destroyed another 351. The totals include 210 steamers captured and 85 destroyed, along with 569 schooners taken and 114 destroyed. In 1861 there were 3,465 successful steamer- and sailingship runs through the blockade. In 1864, the last full year of war, the total was 619. With Confederate domestic production never reaching 50 percent of military needs, goods brought in by blockade-runners were essential to the Southern war effort. Historian Stephen Wise has estimated that the South brought in through blockade-running at least 400,000 rifles (more than 60 percent of the Confederacy’s modern arms), 2,250,000 pounds of saltpeter (two-thirds of that needed), and 3 million pounds of lead (one-third of army requirements). The runners also carried clothing, chemicals, and medicine. Without these supplies, the Confederacy could not have survived as long as it did. The effectiveness of the blockade remains a hot topic of debate. Its critics note that the vast majority of blockade-runners were successful. They point out that the economic collapse of the Confederacy was not because of the blockade but because of the deterioration of the Southern railroad system. Critics of the blockade argue that even a more effective blockade would not have prevented the South from continuing the war. Confederate defeat did not result from lack of war materials; rather, the South simply ran out of manpower. Defenders of the blockade acknowledge its shortcomings. They admit to its incomplete nature and the fact that the South never lacked the essential weapons with which to fight and win battles, but they note that the Confederacy was hardpressed in such essential items as steam engines, clothing, shoes, harnesses, medicines, and even blankets. The blockade also affected the entire Southern economy. The loss of rolled iron rail was particularly harmful, leading to the collapse of the Confederate transportation system, bringing with it serious distribution problems, even of food, that affected soldier and civilian alike. The blockade also disrupted patterns of intraregional trade by water, sharply increasing the burden on the already inadequate Southern railroad net. The blockade was certainly the chief cause, directly or indirectly, of Southern economic distress. The figures given of successful passages through the blockade are also misleading, as they include vessels exiting as well as entering Southern ports. Each stop by an individual coastal packet at a different port is counted a “successful attempt.” Two coastal steamers making up to 10 stops per trip made almost 800 of the runs in 1861. The total also includes small river vessels. The number of successful runs must also be compared to the number of ships entering Southern ports in normal circumstances. Thus, in a typical peacetime year New Orleans alone had 1,900 ships entering the Gulf.

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Historian David G. Surdam notes the role played by cotton, by far the most important prewar Southern export, in the blockade equation. He believes that the effectiveness of the blockade should not be measured in terms of goods smuggled through it or the success rate of the ships. Rather, the points to remember are that the total volume of trade was sharply reduced and that the cost of shipment was dramatically increased. This was especially true regarding cotton. The underindustrialized Confederacy had to import manufactured goods to win the war, yet the higher shipping costs consumed much of its purchasing power and sharply eroded its ability to make purchases overseas. The increased cost in transporting cotton to Europe accounted for almost all of the increase in its price in Europe and the North. Although European goods could always reach the South, they increasingly arrived through less convenient ports, such as via the Mexican port of Matamoros to Brownsville, Texas. Also increasing shortages of consumer goods lowered civilian morale. The U.S. government spent $567 million on the navy during the war (1879 calculation). This was roughly 8 percent of the expenses of the entire war ($6.8 billion). Yet the entire cost of the navy was equal to or exceeded by the loss in revenue to the South from the export of raw cotton. Given the fact that the North was far richer than the South, it was much easier for it to bear the expense of the blockade than it was for the South to sustain the loss in export revenue. Critical in the success of the blockade was the decision taken by Washington early in the war to secure bases from which the blockading squadrons could operate. The Union side demonstrated great ability in setting up and maintaining repair and supply facilities, as well as an accompanying logistics network. The effort here was a vast one, and it is largely unsung in histories of the war. It certainly appears to have been an effective use of Northern resources. Kenneth J. Blume and Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Anaconda Strategy; Bache, Alexander Dallas; Blockade Board; Blockade-Runners; Brooklyn, USS; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Davis, Jefferson Finis; East Gulf Blockading Squadron; Gulf Blockading Squadron; Lincoln, Abraham; Navy, CSA; Navy, U.S.; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Potomac Flotilla; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Welles, Gideon; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Bradlee, Francis B. C. Blockade Running during the Civil War and the Effect of Land and Water Transportation on the Confederacy. 1925; reprint, Philadelphia: Porcupine, 1974. Browning, Robert M., Jr. From Cape Charles to Cape Fear: The North Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1993. Browning, Robert M., Jr. Success Is All That Was Expected: The South Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War. Dulles, VA: Brassey’s, 2002. Dalzell, George W. The Flight from the Flag: The Continuing Effect of the Civil War upon the American Carrying Trade. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1940. Soley, James Russell. The Navy in the Civil War, Vol. 1, The Blockade and the Cruisers. New York: Scribner, 1983.

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Surdam, David G. Northern Naval Superiority and the Economics of the American Civil War. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2001. Taylor, Thomas E. Running the Blockade: A Personal Narrative of Adventures, Risks, and Escapes during the American Civil War. 1912; reprint, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1994. Wise, Stephen R. Lifeline of the Confederacy: Blockade Running during the Civil War. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988.

Blockade-Runners Ships that sought to circumvent the Union naval blockade of the southern Atlantic and Gulf coasts. One of President Abraham Lincoln’s first actions after the start of hostilities with the Confederate States was to declare on April 19, 1861, a naval blockade of the Confederacy. The limited forces available to the U.S. Navy at the beginning of the war made the blockade a nominal undertaking, but as new ships joined the fleet, the blockade became a reality. The predominantly agricultural character of the South’s economy and its reliance on a very limited range of export products made the Confederacy very susceptible to an effective blockade of imported manufactured goods, not only such military items as rifles and artillery, but also such essential nonmilitary items as iron rails and steam engines for its railroad system. The South would also need to pay for these imports by means of exports, primarily agricultural products, chiefly cotton. At first the limited efficacy of the Union blockade permitted the use of most types of available merchant vessels to run the blockade, even including sailing craft. However, as the ships in the blockading squadrons grew in number and

The USS Fort Donelson. A 642-ton iron-hulled side-wheel gunboat, it was built in 1860 at Glasgow, Scotland, as the commercial steamer Giraffe. In 1862 it became the blockade runner Robert E. Lee and, during the next year, successfully penetrated the Federal blockade of the South more than 20 times. While attempting to reach Wilmington, North Carolina, on November 9, 1863, it was captured by U.S. Navy warships and was subsequently taken into the U.S. Navy. (Naval History and Heritage Command)

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efficiency, penetrating the blockade required more specialized vessels. These ships represented the period’s cutting edge of ship design technology. From early 1862 the blockade-runners consisted almost entirely of relatively small, very fast steamers. Virtually all of these ships were constructed in Great Britain, mainly by shipyards in Scotland and northern England. They had long, low, narrow, shallowdraft iron or steel hulls and were equipped with steam engines, almost always driving side-wheels. Their decks were flush and low (though many had turtle-back forecastles to improve sea keeping). They carried only light sail rigs for steadying purposes, and had very little in the way of superstructure, so as to avoid detection. Their machinery endowed such ships with a top speed of about 18 knots, and their low silhouettes (and camouflage gray paint) made them hard to see, especially at night. The operating pattern for the blockade-runners quickly established itself at the beginning of the conflict. Goods bound for the Confederacy were carried from European ports, chiefly in Britain, in regular merchant ships to three principal destinations—Bermuda, Nassau in the Bahamas, or Havana in Cuba. This was neutral territory and therefore immune to interception by blockaders. There the cargoes were transferred to the specialized short-range blockade-runners for the dash to one of the Confederate ports through the Union blockade. Vessels from Havana served chiefly at Galveston, Mobile, and New Orleans, while those departing Bermuda or Nassau raced to Savannah, Charleston, or Wilmington, North Carolina. Generally speaking, the blockaders relied on night or bad weather to make port, as well as on prearranged signals, such as colored rockets. Where possible, blockaderunners utilized high-grade anthracite coal, which would not give off telltale black smoke. To secure even higher heat in the boilers, and perhaps a few extra knots of speed, captains might burn cotton soaked in turpentine. Blockade-running was a major business, and British citizens were very much involved in financing and manning the blockade-runners. Such individuals routinely fell into Union hands. To prevent their imprisonment from becoming a diplomatic crisis, British citizens who were apprehended in such activities were imprisoned only a few days or months and then handed over to British authorities on the pledge that they would not assist the Confederacy in the future. The Confederate government did not begin operating its own blockade-runners until late 1864. Prior to that time, all blockade-runners were privately owned. Furthermore, the government did relatively little to prioritize the carriage of war materiel essential for the Confederacy’s survival until very late in the war. Consequently, during most of the conflict the blockade-runners operated as private commercial ventures and carried, in addition to military goods and strategic materials, comparatively large quantities of luxury goods, such as fine wines and liquors, lace and other fashion items, and even umbrellas, all for the benefit of wealthy domestic Southern consumers. Not until March 5, 1864, did the Confederate Congress pass a bill requiring all shippers to make full disclosure of their cargoes and specifying that all

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Illustration showing the USS Eolus (foreground) firing on the British blockade runner Lady Sterling (background), laden with a cargo of cotton and tobacco, off Wilmington, North Carolina on October 28, 1864. Another ship of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, the USS Calypso (not shown), also took part in the capture of this British blockade runner. (Naval History and Heritage Command)

blockade-runners had to have one-half of their outward and inward cargo space taken by the Confederate government at specified rates. British owners especially protested, and a number swore that they would remove their ships from service, but few, if any, did so. Some exceptional and well-handled (or lucky) ships succeeded in making as many as 8 inbound runs. During the course of the war, some 6,316 attempts to run the blockade occurred, of which 5,389 succeeded. According to one study, 83.9 percent of steamer runs through the blockade were successful. The success rate for sailing ships was considerably less, 57.4 percent. Nevertheless, the supplies brought into the Confederacy through the blockade helped it to survive for as long as it did. Large quantities of firearms, almost all the paper needed for its cartridges, three-quarters of the constituents for its gunpowder, one-third of the lead for bullets, and most of the cloth and leather for uniforms and equipment came from outside the Confederacy in the holds of blockaderunners. Confederate field armies until very late in the war (during the spring of 1865) consistently received weapons, clothing, and equipment as long as ports remained open to the blockade-runners. It was not until after the fall of Fort Fisher and the consequent capture of Wilmington, North Carolina, in January 1865 that this inflow of supplies was terminated. Exports from the Confederacy were much more limited. During the entire war, only about 400,000 bales of cotton, the South’s primary export commodity,

74 |â•‡ Bormann Fuze

departed Southern ports. This four-year total represents about 12 percent of 3 million bales of cotton exported each year in the immediate prewar era. Overall, the achievements of the blockade-runners during the Civil War constitute a remarkable story of success. Until the Union succeeded in capturing and closing Southern ports, the Confederate armies continued to be adequately supplied with munitions, equipment, and attire despite the Confederacy’s limited industrial base. Paul E. Fontenoy See also Anaconda Strategy; Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Blockade Board; Blockade of the Confederacy; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; East Gulf Blockading Squadron; Fort Fisher Campaign; Gulf Blockading Squadron; Navy, CSA; Navy, U.S.; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Peterhoff Crisis; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Trent Affair; West Gulf Blockading Squadron; Wilmington, North Carolina, Engagements at

References Carr, Dawson. Gray Phantoms of the Cape Fear: Running the Civil War Blockade. Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair, 1998. Surdam, David G. Northern Naval Superiority and the Economics of the American Civil War. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2001. Vandiver, Frank, ed. Confederate Blockade Running through Bermuda, 1861–1865: Letter and Cargo Manifests. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1947. Wise, Stephen R. Lifeline of the Confederacy: Blockade Running during the Civil War. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988.

Bormann Fuze Artillery shell fuse. A major challenge for gunners until the mid-19th century was the timely ignition of explosive shells on target. From the 17th century to the mid19th century, artillerymen simply packed a fuse channel with fine gunpowder. The action of firing the gun ignited this powder train, which then burned to and set off the explosive charge in the shell. Precise timing was impossible because the powder in the fuse was more tightly packed toward the bottom and thus burned more slowly than at the top. This problem was compounded by the compression of the powder train in the action of the shell being fired. Imprecision in the timing of the shell explosion had not been a major problem until the development in 1784 of spherical case shot (case or shrapnel). Such projectiles, specifically designed for use against troop concentrations, required precise timing of the explosion to be effective, for with a shell moving at 1,200 feet per second, an error of a quarter of a second would result in the shell being 300 feet off the target. Belgian Army captain (later major-general) Charles G. Bormann provided the solution. After extensive tests in 1851, the Belgian Army adopted the fuse of his design, which then found its way into worldwide general use. In the United States

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it was widely employed during the Civil War by both the Union and the Confederacy, especially in the 12-pounder Napoleon on land and the Dahlgren boat howitzers at sea. The Bormann Fuze consisted of a threaded zinc disc about half an inch thick and 1.5 inches in diameter. Because the fuse train of mealed powder was placed in a channel laterally around the periphery of the fuse, it enabled uniformity in packing the powder and eliminated any effect of the discharge of the gun on the distribution of fuse powder and, hence, timing. Guided by raised indicators on the fuse’s face, the gunner set the fuse by perforating its face with a special punch to expose the powder trail at the appropriate mark. The Bormann Fuze allowed a maximum timing of 5.25 seconds for a range of 1,200 yards for the 12-pounder gun. As with much Southern ordnance, Confederate-manufactured Bormann Fuzes often proved defective on the battlefield. The main trouble lay in the sealing of the underside of the horseshoe channel containing the powder train. The shock of the discharge of the gun tended to dislodge the plug closing the channel and allowed the flame from the composition to reach the main charge without burning around through the fuse. Attempts to correct the problem were unsuccessful. Following numerous casualties from prematurely exploding shells during the Battle of Fredericksburg, the Confederate Army withdrew the Bormann Fuze from service on December 24, 1862. Union forces did not report comparable problems, and the Bormann Fuze saw extensive use by both the army and navy until it was eventually phased out of service following the war. Spencer C. Tucker See also Artillery Projectiles, Naval; Dahlgren Guns; Naval Ordnance

References Dickey, Thomas S., and Peter C. George. Field Artillery Projectiles of the American Civil War. Atlanta: Arsenal Press, 1980. Tucker, Spencer C. Arming the Fleet: U.S. Navy Ordnance in the Muzzle-Loading Era. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989.

Boston Navy Yard U.S. Navy facility originally known as the Charlestown Navy Yard. Although the site had been host to shipbuilding activities since the American Revolutionary War, it was not until 1801, when the federal government purchased the land, that it became a bona fide naval facility. Situated at the confluence of the Mystic and Charles rivers, it houses the oldest surviving U.S. Navy dry dock. After the War of 1812, the shipyard grew tremendously and was soon renowned not only for fine shipbuilding but also as one of the first shipyards to construct steam warships.

76 |â•‡ Breese, Samuel Livingston

The start of the Civil War pressed the navy yard into full-time service for ship fitting and repairs, especially after the Norfolk (Gosport) Naval Yard was abandoned to the Confederacy in April 1861. An 86-acre naval hospital, along with three ship houses and three building slips, made the Boston Navy Yard a vital supply and support depot for the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron. The facility’s 100,000-square-foot rope-making facility produced 1,400 tons of cordage during the war. Between 1861 and 1865 the keels of 19 warships were laid at the naval yard. The steam frigate USS Merrimack, which would be rebuilt into the Confederate ironclad Virginia, was launched from the Boston Navy Yard in 1855. Robert A. Lynn and William E. Whyte III See also Brooklyn Navy Yard; Mare Island Navy Yard; Norfolk Navy Yard; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Pensacola Navy Yard; Philadelphia Navy Yard; Portsmouth Navy Yard; Virginia, CSS; Washington Navy Yard

References Canney, Donald L. Lincoln’s Navy: The Ships, Men and Organization, 1861–65. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998. Lewis, Emmanuel R. Seacoast Fortifications of the United States: An Introductory History. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1970.

Breese, Samuel Livingston Birth Date: October 6, 1794 Death Date: December 17, 1870 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Whitestown, New York, on October 6, 1794, Samuel Livingston Breese was the brother of Sidney Breese, future senator from Illinois. Breese received a midshipman’s warrant on December 17, 1810. During the War of 1812, he participated in the Battle of Lake Champlain (September 11, 1814), for which he was awarded a sword and received the thanks of Congress. Breese was promoted to lieutenant on April 17, 1816, and served in the Mediterranean during 1826–1827. He was promoted to master commandant on December 22, 1835, and was assigned to the Philadelphia Navy Yard in 1836. Promoted to captain on September 8, 1841, he commanded the frigate USS Cumberland in the Mediterranean Squadron in 1845. During the Mexican-American War, Breese captained the sloop USS Albany and took part in the landing and subsequent siege of Veracruz, and in the capture of Tuxpan, where for a short period he was the military governor. From 1853 to 1855 Breese commanded the Norfolk (Gosport) Navy Yard. He went on to command the U.S. Mediterranean Squadron from 1855 to 1858, and in 1858 assumed charge of the Brooklyn (New York) Navy Yard.

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At the beginning of the Civil War, Breese had served in the U.S. Navy for 50 years, 19 of which were in sea service, 10 years in shore assignments, and some 20 years in awaiting orders in a navy that had too many officers. Breese was promoted to commodore on the retired list effective July 16, 1862, and effective September 3, 1862, he was advanced to rear admiral on the retired list. Upon retirement, he was appointed lighthouse inspector and also served on the court-martial board during the war. Breese died in Mount Airy, Pennsylvania, on December 17, 1870. Spencer C. Tucker See also Brooklyn Navy Yard; Norfolk Navy Yard; Philadelphia Navy Yard

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001.

Bridge, Horatio Birth Date: April 8, 1806 Death Date: March 18, 1893 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Augusta, Maine, on April 8, 1806, Horatio Bridge graduated in 1825 from Bowdoin College in Maine. Admitted to the bar in 1828, Bridge practiced law in Maine for 10 years. He received an appointment to the navy as a purser—a staff officer in the Bureau of Provisions and Clothing (the title of purser changed to paymaster in 1860)—on February 16, 1838. He was accorded the relative rank of lieutenant in 1841 and commander in 1854. On October 1, 1854, Bridge was appointed chief of the Bureau of Provisions and Clothing. At the beginning of the Civil War, Bridge had been in the navy for 22 years: 10 years of sea service, 9 years of shore duty, and 2 years awaiting assignment. During the war, Bridge continued as bureau chief. By reason of his position, he was accorded the relative rank of commodore on March 13, 1863. Although placed on the retired list on April 8, 1868, Bridge continued to serve as bureau chief until July 1869, when he became chief inspector of the bureau until 1873. He was accorded the status of pay director on the retired list on March 3, 1871. Bridge died in Athens, Pennsylvania, on March 18, 1893. Spencer C. Tucker See also Navy, U.S.


78 |â•‡ Brooke, John Mercer Paullin, Charles Oscar. Paullin’s History of Naval Administration, 1775–1911. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1968. Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001.

Brooke, John Mercer Birth Date: December 18, 1826 Death Date: December 14, 1906 Confederate naval officer and ordnance designer. John Mercer Brooke’s father, George Mercer Brooke, had entered the U.S. Army in 1808 and ended the War of 1812 as a major with the brevet rank of colonel. In 1824 he constructed Fort Brooke on the site of present-day Tampa, Florida, where, on December 18, 1826, John Mercer Brooke was born. Young Brooke secured a warrant as a midshipman in the U.S. Navy on March 3, 1841, and graduated as a passed midshipman from the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, on August 10, 1847. He was promoted to master on September 14, 1855, and to lieutenant on September 15, 1855. Brooke’s intellectual curiosity and scientific bent led to useful inventions, including deep-sea sounding leads that eventually made possible the laying of an Atlantic cable. Later he led major explorations of the north Pacific and the coast of Japan. He also escorted the first Japanese diplomatic mission to the United States. On April 20, 1861, three days after the secession of Virginia, Brooke resigned his commission in the U.S. Navy. His wife and close friends Confederate Navy commander John M. Brooke seem to have been key factors in his headed the Bureau of Ordnance and Hydrogra- decision. Future rear admiral David phy. He helped design the ironclad CSS Virginia D. Porter stated that he only regretas well as heavy naval guns for the Confederacy. ted the loss of two men from the His large rifled guns were perhaps the best U.S. Navy: Catesby ap R. Jones and such guns of the war on either side. (Naval Brooke. History and Heritage Command)

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Commissioned a lieutenant in the Virginia navy on April 23, 1861, Brooke became naval aide to commander of Virginia forces General Robert E. Lee. When it was clear that Virginia would be linked to the Confederacy, Brooke applied for a commission in the Confederate Navy. On May 2 Confederate secretary of the navy Stephen R. Mallory informed him that he had been granted a commission as a lieutenant. In a June 1861 meeting with Mallory, Brooke assured the secretary that the South could build its own ironclads. Mallory then transferred Brooke to the naval ordnance office, where he supervised work on the armor and guns for CSS Virginia. Brooke was responsible for the Virginia’s slanted armor casemate, subsequently copied in other Confederate ironclads, as well as the idea of bow and stern extensions under water. However, friction between Brooke and constructor John L. Porter, who claimed credit for the Virginia’s design, contributed to Brooke’s subsequent lack of interest in the ironclad program. Brooke’s ordnance achievements are especially remarkable, particularly given his lack of experience in that area. Promoted to commander in September 1862, Brooke in March 1863 was named chief of the Confederate Bureau of Ordnance and Hydrography, a post he held until the end of the war. In this capacity, Brooke designed a variety of guns for the Confederacy. His rifled pieces were perhaps the finest of that type on either side in the war. Brooke also oversaw the establishment of the Confederate Naval Academy at Drewry’s Bluff, Virginia. Following the war, Brooke joined the Virginia Military Institute faculty as professor of astronomy, meteorology, and geography. He served in that position from 1865 until 1899. Brooke died in Lexington, Virginia, on December 14, 1906. Spencer C. Tucker See also Brooke Guns; Buchanan, Franklin; Ironclads, Confederate; Jones, Catesby ap Roger; Mallory, Stephen Russell; Naval Academy, Confederate; Naval Academy, United States; Naval Ordnance; Navy, CSA; Porter, David Dixon; Porter, John Luke; Virginia, CSS

References Brooke, George M., Jr. John M. Brooke: Naval Scientist and Educator. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1980. Brooke, John Mercer. “The Virginia or Merrimac: Her Real Projector.” Southern Historical Society Papers 19 (January 1891): 3–34. Conrad, James Lee. Rebel Reefers: The Organization and Midshipmen of the Confederate States Naval Academy. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2003. Register of Officers of the Confederate States Navy, 1861–1865: As Compiled and Revised by the Office of Naval Records and Library, United States Navy Department, 1931, from All Available Data. With a new introduction by John M. Carroll. Mattituck, NY: J. M. Carroll, 1981. [Originally published by the Naval Record and Library, U.S. Navy Department, in 1898 and revised in 1931.]

80 |â•‡ Brooke Guns

Brooke Guns Commander John M. Brooke designed a number of heavy guns for the Confederate Navy, including 8- and 9-inch smoothbores, 10- and 11-inch double-banded smoothbores, and the 11-inch triple-banded smoothbore. Brooke is, however, best known for his double- and triple-banded rifled guns, produced in 6.4-inch, 7-inch, and 8-inch bore sizes. These were arguably the finest rifled navy guns on either side in the war. During one test at 260 yards, a 140-pound bolt fired from a triplebanded Brooke rifle penetrated 8 inches of iron and 18 inches of wood backing. As with his Union counterpart, John A. Dahlgren, Brooke understood that a hemisphere offered the strongest cap for a cylindrical pressure vessel. He also understood, as did Union founder Robert P. Parrott, the increase in strength gained from a wrought-iron band around the breech of a cast-iron gun. Brooke-designed guns are identified, with few exceptions, by a fully hemispheric breech contour; layers of welded-on reinforcing bands; a plain tapered chase, extending from the reinforcing bands to the muzzle; a rough exterior, consistent with the Confederate practice of not turning and merely leaving the exterior of the guns rough; and, save in the smoothbores, seven-groove rifling of right-hand twist. Brooke rifles were virtually indestructible. These guns were cast by the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, Virginia, and later by the Confederate Naval Ordnance Works in Selma, Alabama. Spencer C. Tucker See also Artillery Projectiles, Naval; Brooke, John Mercer; Dahlgren, John Adolph Bernard; Dahlgren Guns; Naval Ordnance; Parrott, Robert Parker; Parrott Guns; Selma Naval Gun Foundry; Tredegar Iron Works

A 10-inch banded Brooke smoothbore made for the Confederate ironclad Columbia. The gun is on exhibit at the Washington Navy Yard in the District of Columbia. (Naval History and Heritage Command)

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References Brooke, George M., Jr. John M. Brooke: Naval Scientist and Educator. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1980. Brooke, John Mercer. “The Virginia or Merrimac: Her Real Projector.” Southern Historical Society Papers 19 (January 1891): 3–34. Olmstead, Edwin, Wayne E. Stark, and Spencer C. Tucker. The Big Guns: Civil War Siege, Seacoast, and Naval Cannon. Alexandria Bay, NY: Museum Restoration Service, 1997.

Brooklyn, USS U.S. Navy screw sloop. Built in Brooklyn, New York, by Westervelt, the Brooklyn was laid down in 1857; launched on July 27, 1858; and commissioned on January 26, 1859. With a displacement of 2,532 tons, the Brooklyn was 233 feet in length with a beam of 53 feet and draft of 16 feet, 3 inches. Propelled by a single screw, it was capable of a maximum speed of 11 knots. The Brooklyn had a crew complement of 335 men. Armament varied during the life of the ship. Initially armed with 1 10-inch smoothbore in pivot mount and 20 IX-inch Dahlgren smoothbores broadside, in 1862 the Brooklyn mounted 24 IX-inch Dahlgrens and 2 24-pounder boat howitzers. During 1861–1864, the Brooklyn served in Flag Officer (later rear admiral) David G. Farragut’s West Gulf Coast Blockading Squadron. It took part in the relief of Fort Pickens, Florida, on April 13, 1861. Arriving off the mouth of the Mississippi River on May 26, it brought an end to New Orleans–based privateering. The Brooklyn then saw action in the passage of Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip below New Orleans on April 9, 1862, where it sustained nine men killed. After the capture of New Orleans, it steamed upriver past Baton Rouge. It shelled Grand Gulf, Mississippi, on May 26, 1862, and then took part in the passage of Farragut’s squadron past the Confederate batteries at Vicksburg, Mississippi, on June 28, although the ship itself failed to make it past. After undergoing repairs from August 1863 to April 1864, the Brooklyn returned to the West Gulf Coast Blockading Squadron and took part in the Battle of Mobile Bay on August 5, 1864, in which it was hit 40 times and sustained 11 crewmen killed. It then participated in the bombardment of Fort Morgan in Mobile Bay during August 9–23, 1864. The Brooklyn then served with Rear Admiral David D. Porter’s North Atlantic Blockading Squadron from October 1864 to January 1865, and it took part in the Union attacks on Fort Fisher (December 24–25, 1864, and January 13–15, 1865). During the war it captured eight ships. Following the Civil War, the Brooklyn served off South America during 1865– 1867, in European waters during 1871–1875, in the North Atlantic during 1874– 1875, and off South America during 1875 and 1881–1884. It was rebuilt during

82 |â•‡ Brooklyn Navy Yard

1876–1881. Following repairs to damage sustained in a collision with a British steamer at Montevideo, Uruguay, on May 1, 1882, the Brooklyn was in the Atlantic Squadron during 1886–1889. Decommissioned on March 14, 1889, it was sold on March 25, 1891. Spencer C. Tucker See also Dahlgren Guns; Farragut, David Glasgow; Fort Fisher Campaign; Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s Run Past; Fort Pickens, Florida; Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, Relief Efforts and Beginning of the Civil War; Mississippi River; Mobile, Siege of; Mobile Bay; Mobile Bay, Battle of; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Porter, David Dixon; Vicksburg, Mississippi, West Gulf Squadron Passage of; Vicksburg Campaign; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. II, Vol. 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1921.

Brooklyn Navy Yard Also referred to as the New York Navy Yard, the Brooklyn Navy Yard was the second largest in the United States at the beginning of the Civil War. The vast deep water of New York City’s harbor, a large population providing labor, and numerous manufacturing facilities made it the Union’s busiest and most productive yard during the war. The 43-acre yard was located east of Manhattan, across the East River, on Brooklyn’s Wallabout Bay. Eventually it grew to 130 acres, along with an additional 33 in what was known as Cobb Dock. The yard had five shipbuilding and repair sites, two ship houses, a stone dry dock, a floating dock, and a launching ship. Docked at the yard was the old ship of the line North Carolina. It then served as a receiving ship that housed new recruits, as well as officers and seamen awaiting assignments. Aboard it new recruits were given uniforms and basic seamanship training before being detailed to the fleet. There were 46 shipbuilding firms operating in New York, along with 11 conducting business in nearby New Jersey. The Brooklyn yard itself built or began 21 ships during the war, 9 of which saw service in the conflict. The yard was also the primary point for the conversion of civilian ships to warships for blockade service. Of some 380 vessels purchased for conversion during the war, 190 entered service from New York, and much of this work occurred at the yard. In 1864 the facility employed as many as 6,000 men. Between shipbuilding, ship repairing, ship

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refitting, and recruit training, the Brooklyn Navy Yard was vital to the Union naval effort. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles also offered the services of the yard to the Russian squadron that wintered in New York Harbor in 1863. William E. Whyte III See also Boston Navy Yard; Mare Island Navy Yard; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Pensacola Navy Yard; Philadelphia Navy Yard; Portsmouth Navy Yard; Receiving Ship; Russian Fleet Visits to New York and San Francisco; Seamen, Recruitment of; Washington Navy Yard; Welles, Gideon

References Canney, Donald L. Lincoln’s Navy: The Ships, Men and Organization, 1861–65. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998. Golder, F. A. “The Russian Fleet and the Civil War.” American Historical Review 20(4) (1915): 801–812.

Brown, Isaac Newton Birth Date: May 27, 1817 Death Date: September 1, 1889 Confederate Navy officer. Born in Caldwell County, Kentucky, on May 27, 1817, Isaac Newton Brown spent part of his youth in western Tennessee. Shortly after the death of his father, Brown secured a midshipman’s warrant on March 15, 1834. He was advanced to passed midshipman on July 6, 1840; to master on August 15, 1846; and to lieutenant on October 31, 1846. He served in the Mexican-American War and thereafter took part in a number of cruises in various warships. With the beginning of the Civil War, Brown resigned from the U.S. Navy on April 25, 1861. Commissioned a lieutenant in the Confederate Navy that June, Brown was assigned to the Mississippi River area and in June 1862 was detailed to supervise completion of the Confederate ironclad Arkansas then being constructed at Yazoo City, Mississippi. Following completion of this demanding assignment, on July 15, 1862, Brown commanded the ironclad in a passage down the Yazoo River to Vicksburg. In the process, he first engaged Union ships on a reconnaissance mission in the Yazoo, badly damaging the Union ironclad Carondelet. Then—much to the consternation of squadron commander Rear Admiral David G. Farragut—Brown passed through the entire Union squadron in the Mississippi, gaining his objective of Vicksburg. In recognition of this accomplishment, Brown was promoted to commander in August 1862. Brown was sick ashore and thus did not take part in the early August trip of the Arkansas down the Mississippi to assist Confederate ground forces attacking Baton Rouge, where the ironclad was destroyed. Transferred east, Brown commanded the ironclad Charleston at Charleston, South Carolina, during 1863–1865.

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Following the end of the Civil War, Brown resumed farming on his land in the Mississippi River Delta area. He subsequently moved to Texas and died in Corsicana on September 1, 1889. Spencer C. Tucker See also Arkansas, CSS; Arkansas, CSS, Union Attempts to Destroy; Baton Rouge, Battle of; Carondelet, USS; Farragut, David Glasgow; Ironclads, Confederate; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Yazoo River

References Still, William N., Jr. Iron Afloat: The Story of the Confederate Armorclads. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1985. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 19. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1905.

Buchanan, Franklin Birth Date: September 17, 1800 Death Date: May 11, 1874 United States naval officer prior to 1861 and then ranking officer in the Confederate Navy. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, on September 17, 1800, Franklin Buchanan began his naval career as a midshipman on January 18, 1815, going to sea in the U.S. Navy frigate Java under Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry. He was promoted to lieutenant on January 13, 1825, and to commander on September 8, 1841. Especially interested in technological innovation and in improved education for midshipmen, Buchanan became a strong advocate of steam propulsion and was the first superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy, which opened in 1845. Although his tenure was short, Buchanan put the school on solid footing by obtaining appropriations for its physical facilities, hiring capable instructors, and winning approval from the Navy’s Board of Examiners. In 1847, Buchanan saw action in the Mexican-American War at Tuxpan and Tabasco. He then commanded the steam frigate Susquehanna, flagship for the Perry expedition to Japan. Buchanan, promoted to captain on September 14, 1855, became the first American officer to set foot on Japanese soil when he presented the president’s letter to the emperor’s representatives. In 1859 Buchanan took command of the Washington Naval Yard. With the secession crisis of 1861, Buchanan, believing that Maryland was on the verge of leaving the Union, tendered his resignation on April 22. When his state failed to secede, Buchanan attempted to retract the letter, but Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles dismissed him. Buchanan then joined the embryonic Confederate Navy with the rank of captain. His first posting was as chief of the Bureau of Orders and Details, an office that gave him substantial responsibility in personnel assignments. He was

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soon engaged in establishing defenses along the Potomac River and on the approaches to Richmond. To offset the North’s overwhelming numerical advantage in warships, Buchanan advocated the construction of ironclads. Pushing ahead the conversion of the wooden steam frigate Merrimack to the ironclad Virginia, Buchanan detailed some of his most capable officers to the project. On February 24, 1862, he personally assumed command of the Chesapeake Bay Squadron, flying his flag on the Virginia. Learning of the construction of John Ericsson’s Monitor, Buchanan resolved on an immediate sortie before the Union warship could reinforce the Union blockading squadron in Hampton Roads. On March 8, 1862, Buchanan first Franklin Buchanan, one of two Confederate attacked the U.S. Navy frigate Cum- rear admirals, personally commanded the berland, ramming and sinking that CSS Virginia in its clash with the Union ship. He then forced the Union frig- blockading squadron in Hampton Roads on ate Congress aground. When the lat- March 8, 1862, and the CSS Tennessee in the ter ship struck its colors, Buchanan Battle of Mobile Bay on August 5, 1864. (Library of Congress) attempted to take possession, but as he was directing a boarding party from the Virginia, rifle fire from Union troops ashore wounded a number of his men. Furious, Buchanan ordered the destruction of the Congress. Recklessly exposing himself topside, Buchanan was hit in the left thigh by a minié ball. The wound was so serious that he was compelled to relinquish command of the Virginia and thus missed the historic battle the following day against the Monitor. While Buchanan convalesced, a grateful Congress in Richmond promoted him to rear admiral on August 21, 1862, for “gallant and meritorious conduct,” making him the highest-ranking officer in the Confederate Navy. Indeed, he was the first of only two Southern officers to hold that rank (the other being Raphael Semmes). The next month, Buchanan took command of the naval defenses of Mobile, Alabama. There he helped prepare the Confederate commerce raider Florida for its productive foray against Union merchant shipping. Buchanan also aided the builders of the privately financed submarine H. L. Hunley, which was transported overland to Charleston after its completion. With characteristic energy, Buchanan directed the arming of CSS Tennessee, which was being built on the Alabama River at Selma.

86 |â•‡ Buchanan, Franklin

He commissioned the ironclad ram—the most powerful warship to see action under the Confederate flag—on February 16, 1864. Buchanan contemplated an early attack on Union rear admiral David G. Farragut’s blockading fleet, but this plan miscarried when the deep-draft ironclad ran aground. Instead, when Farragut forced his way past the outer defenses of Mobile Bay on August 5, 1864, the powerful Union fleet of 14 wooden warships and 4 monitors quickly routed the 3 wooden Confederate gunboats, leaving Buchanan in the ironclad to fight one of the most mismatched naval engagements in history. Hoping to ram, Buchanan steered directly toward Farragut’s flagship, the steam sloop Hartford, but this impulsive act took the Tennessee away from the covering fire of Fort Morgan. Quickly, the ironclad was assailed by the entire Union force. Rammed three times by Union vessels, the slow-moving Confederate ship was also pummeled by Union gunfire, which knocked down the smokestack and slashed the exposed chains for the steering gear and the armored plates covering the gun ports. Unable either to steer or fight with his vessel and suffering from a broken leg, Buchanan authorized the ship’s surrender after an hour’s contest. Buchanan was soon exchanged and promptly reassigned to Mobile. He reached Alabama only as the Confederacy disintegrated and participated in the surrender of the Department of Alabama, Mississippi, and East Louisiana on May 8, 1865. Following the war, Buchanan returned to his native Maryland, dying in Talbot County on May 11, 1874. As a leader, Buchanan earned the admiration of his men for his bravery; they affectionately nicknamed him “Old Buck.” His farsightedness in pushing the conversion of the Merrimack assured him a place among the first ranks of naval innovators, and his skillful handling of the unwieldy Virginia earned him high marks for daring combat leadership. However, as evidenced by the Battle of Mobile Bay, Buchanan’s principal failing lay in his impetuosity and fiery temper. Malcolm Muir Jr. See also Farragut, David Glasgow; Florida, CSS; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Hartford, USS; H. L. Hunley, CSS; Ironclads, Confederate; Ironclads, Union; Mobile, Siege of; Mobile Bay; Mobile Bay, Battle of; Monitor, USS; Naval Academy, United States; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Semmes, Raphael; Tennessee, CSS; Virginia, CSS; Washington Navy Yard; Welles, Gideon; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Luraghi, Raimondo. A History of the Confederate Navy. Translated by Paolo D. Coletta. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1996. Register of Officers of the Confederate States Navy, 1861–1865: As Compiled and Revised by the Office of Naval Records and Library, United States Navy Department, 1931, from All Available Data. With a new introduction by John M. Carroll. Mattituck, NY: J. M. Carroll, 1981. [Originally published by the Naval Record and Library, U.S. Navy Department, in 1898 and revised in 1931.] Symonds, Craig. Confederate Admiral: The Life and Wars of Franklin Buchanan. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1999.

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Bulloch, James Dunwody Birth Date: June 25, 1823 Death Date: January 7, 1901 Confederate Navy officer and purchasing agent for the Confederacy in Europe. James Dunwody Bulloch was born near Savannah, Georgia, on June 25, 1823. On June 21, 1839, he secured a midshipman’s warrant in the U.S. Navy. He was advanced to passed midshipman on July 2, 1845; to master on January 7, 1853; and to lieutenant on October 18, 1853. He resigned from the U.S. Navy on October 5, 1854, and then captained various merchant ships carrying mail for the government. When Bulloch’s home state of Georgia seceded from the Union on January 19, 1861, Bulloch was commanding the steamer Bienville. Despite his intention to volunteer for Confederate Navy service, Bulloch believed himself bound to return the steamer to its New York owners. He then traveled south and offered his services to Confederate secretary of the navy Steven R. Mallory. Impressed with Bulloch, Mallory sent him as one of two Confederate naval agents to Europe. Originally a civilian, Bulloch was subsequently commissioned a commander in the Confederate Navy. The first agent, serving naval officer Lieutenant James H. North, was to purchase or contract for the construction of ironclad warships suitable for breaking the blockade, while Mallory ordered Bulloch to procure ships, guns, and ammunition and secure commerce raiders “with the quickest possible dispatch.” Although North proved a failure, Bulloch achieved considerable success. He arrived in Liverpool, England, in early June 1861, and by August he had placed contracts with British yards for the ships that would become the Confederate cruisers Florida and Alabama. He and other Confederate agents ultimately contracted for 18 ships abroad, the most successful of which were those secured in Britain: the Alabama, Florida, Shenandoah, Chickamauga, Georgia, Rappahannock, and Tallahassee. The other 11 ships became blockade-runners, were sequestered by the British and French governments, or were not completed by the end of the war. Bulloch was able to skirt the Foreign Enlistment Act of 1819, which prohibited British citizens from equipping, furnishing, fitting out, or arming any vessel intended for service by foreign belligerent navies, by making certain that none of his cruisers went to sea with ordnance, small arms, or warlike stores. These he obtained and shipped in other vessels, and the cruisers were then outfitted and commissioned as Confederate warships in international waters. In addition to the commerce raiders, Bulloch also secured war supplies and ships to transport them to the Confederacy. In October 1861 he sailed on the Fingal and the next month ran it into Savannah with the most important military cargo to reach that city by sea during the war. Bulloch returned to Liverpool in March 1862. Mallory was delighted with Bulloch’s work; however, despite his pledge that Bulloch would receive command of one of the new Confederate commerce

88 |â•‡ Butt, Walter Raleigh

raiders, Bulloch was too valuable to spare and command of the Florida and then the Alabama went to others. In June 1862 Bulloch arranged with the firm of John Laird and Sons to build two smaller armored ships, known thereafter as the Laird Rams. Bullock did all he could to conceal the true destination of the ships, putting out the cover story that they had been ordered by the Egyptian government. U.S. agents were not fooled, however, and heavy pressure by Washington, aided by a sharp decline in Southern military fortunes in the summer of 1863, led the British government to seize both vessels that October and place them in Royal Navy service. Bulloch was also active in France, where he contracted with Bordeaux shipbuilder Lucien Arman for two small steam rams, tentatively named Cheops and Sphinx. As with the British government in the case of the Laird Rams and despite pledges to the contrary, the French government interfered. The Cheops went to Prussia, while the Sphinx was sold to Denmark. After the defeat of the Danes by the Prussians in 1864, Bulloch was able to buy the ship in January 1865. Commissioned CSS Stonewall, it was the only foreign-built ironclad in Confederate service, but by the time it reached Havana, Cuba, in May 1865 the war was over. Excluded from the general amnesty at the end of the war as a Confederate secret agent, Bulloch chose to remain in England, where he became a cotton importer and broker. He wrote his memoirs and died in Liverpool on January 7, 1901. In his will, Bulloch bequeathed $30,000 to his nephew Theodore Roosevelt, who that same year became president of the United States. Spencer C. Tucker See also Adams, Charles Francis, Sr.; Alabama, CSS; Alabama Claims; Blockade-Â�Runners; Chickamauga, CSS; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Fingal, CSS; Florida, CSS; Georgia, CSS, Commerce Raider; Laird Rams; Mallory, Stephen Russell; Peterhoff Crisis; Rappahannock, CSS; Shenandoah, CSS; Stonewall, CSS; Tallahassee, CSS; Trent Affair

References Bulloch, James Dunwody. The Secret Service of the Confederate States in Europe, or How the Confederate Cruisers Were Equipped. New York: Modern Library, 2001. Hearn, Chester G. Gray Raiders of the Sea: How Eight Confederate Warships Destroyed the Union’s High Seas Commerce. Camden, ME: International Marine Publishing, 1992.

Butt, Walter Raleigh Birth Date: Unknown Death Date: 1885 Confederate Navy officer. Born in Virginia, date unknown, Walter Raleigh Butt was raised in Washington Territory. He was appointed to the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, as an acting midshipman on September 20, 1855, and was promoted

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to midshipman upon graduation from the academy on June 9, 1859, and to passed midshipman on August 31, 1861. Butt was serving on the sailing frigate USS Congress when the war began. Butt was dismissed from the navy on October 5, 1861, for refusing to take the oath of allegiance to the United States. He was imprisoned first at Fort Lafayette in New York Harbor, then at Fort Warren in Boston Harbor, and finally aboard the sailing frigate USS Congress in Hampton Roads. Paroled on December 21, 1861, he was exchanged in January 1862. Commissioned a lieutenant in the Confederate Navy on January 8, 1862, Butt was immediately assigned to the new Confederate ironclad Virginia at Norfolk. He participated in the Battle of Hampton Roads (March 8–9, 1862). Following the scuttling of the Virginia, Butt was assigned to Drewry’s Bluff, Virginia, where he saw action in the First Battle of Drewry’s Bluff on May 15, 1862. In February 1863, Confederate Navy lieutenant William H. Murdaugh enlisted Butt to participate in a daring operation to seize USS Michigan on the Great Lakes and use it to destroy locks and U.S. merchant shipping. While Secretary of the Navy Stephen R. Mallory approved the plan, it was vetoed by President Jefferson Davis who feared that this violation of Canadian neutrality might cause the British government to halt the building of ships there for the Confederacy. From March 1863 to July 1864, Butt was in England, seeking command of a commerce raider. When that did not materialize, Butt returned to the Confederacy. Butt took command of the gunboat CSS Nansemond in the James River Squadron on December 1, 1864, and he saw action in the Battle of the James River (Trent’s Reach) on January 23–24, 1865. With the Confederate evacuation of Richmond on April 3, squadron commander Rear Admiral Raphael Semmes ordered his ships destroyed. Butt then served ashore in Semmes’s naval brigade, which joined General Joseph E. Johnston’s army in North Carolina. He was paroled at Greensboro, North Carolina, on April 28, 1865. After the war, Butt became a captain in the Peruvian Navy, serving under fellow Confederate officer John Randolph Tucker during 1866–1867. Returning to Portsmouth, Virginia, he could not find suitable employment and so moved to California, where he was an officer on the Pacific Mail Steamship Company steamer City of San Francisco until his death in California sometime in 1885. Spencer C. Tucker See also Davis, Jefferson Finis; Drewry’s Bluff, First Battle of; Fort Warren, Massachusetts; Hampton Roads, Battle of; James River; James River Squadron, CSA; Mallory, Stephen Russell; Michigan, USS; Naval Academy, United States; Semmes, Raphael; Trent’s Reach, Battle of; Tucker, John Randolph; Virginia, CSS


90 |â•‡ Butt, Walter Raleigh Coski, John M. Capital Navy: The Men, Ships and Operations of the James River Squadron. Campbell, CA: Savas, 1996. Quarstein, John V. C.S.S. Virginia: Mistress of Hampton Roads. Appomattox, VA: H. E. Howard, 2000. Register of Officers of the Confederate States Navy, 1861–1865: As Compiled and Revised by the Office of Naval Records and Library, United States Navy Department, 1931, from All Available Data. With a new introduction by John M. Carroll. Mattituck, NY: J. M. Carroll, 1981. [Originally published by the Naval Record and Library, U.S. Navy Department, in 1898 and revised in 1931.]

C Cairo, USS Lead ship in the seven-vessel Cairo or City class of Union river gunboats named for towns on the western rivers. The center-wheel Cairo-class ships were often referred to as “Pook Turtles” for their rectangular casemates and sloped sides, which gave them a turtlelike appearance. The ship was designed by Samuel R. Pook and built by James B. Eads. Although underpowered, the Cairo and its sister river ironclads were 175 feet in length; 51 feet, two inches in breadth; and 6 feet in draft. They were capable of 5.5 knots. Heavily armed, they mounted 13 guns: three 8-inch smoothbores, four 42-pounder coast defense rifled guns (7-inch bore), and six 32-pounder rifled guns. Three of the guns fired forward. Each gunboat was protected with 2.5 inches of armor on its casemate and 1.25 inches on the conical pilothouse forward. Commissioned on Jnuary 25, 1862, the Cairo participated in the occupation of Clarksville, Tennessee, in February 1862; the bombardment of Fort Pillow and engagement with Confederate gunboats in April and May; and the Battle of Memphis on June 6. Beginning on December 11, it took part in the expedition up the Yazoo River under Commander Henry Walke that was part of Major General Ulysses S. Grant’s overland campaign to take Vicksburg. The expedition consisted of the river ironclads Cairo, Carondelet (flagship), Baron de Kalb, and Pittsburg, along with the tinclads Marmora and Signal, later joined by the ram Lioness. The tinclads and their boats were to drag the river for Confederate torpedoes (mines) secured just below the surface, while the more powerful Union warships provided protection against any attempt at intervention, including by troops ashore. Walke gave explicit orders that the big ships not proceed ahead until the torpedoes had been swept. At midday on December 12, 1862, about a dozen miles up the river, the smaller ships and their boats were sweeping the river. The Cairo was behind and the bow of the leading Marmora was out of sight because of a sharp bend in the river. Suddenly the men on the Cairo heard small-arms fire ahead. Lieutenant Commander Thomas Selfridge, the Cairo’s captain, rashly ordered full speed ahead. The Cairo came alongside the Marmora, only to learn that its crew had been firing at a torpedo in the water. Selfridge ordered a boat lowered to inspect the torpedo, which turned out to be one destroyed the day before. Meanwhile, the bow of the Cairo had turned in toward the shore, and Selfridge ordered his ship backed out to straighten it upstream. 91

92 |â•‡ Cairo, USS

The USS Cairo, lead ship of the Cairo- or City-class of seven river ironclads. These ships were often called “Pook Turtles” for designer Samuel Pook and the shape of the casemate and sloped sides, which gave them a turtle-like appearance. The Cairo was photographed in the Mississippi River in 1862. Note the boat alongside its port bow, crewmen on deck, and other river steamers in the background. (Naval History and Heritage Command)

The Cairo had gone perhaps only half a ship length forward when it struck two mines in quick succession on its port side. The blasts ripped large holes in its hull. The damage was at first thought not to be fatal, but in only a dozen minutes the ironclad went down in about 20 feet of water, a total loss. Only the tops of its pipes were visible. The Lioness then hauled these out to prevent the Confederates from locating the spot and salvaging the ship and its contents. Selfridge escaped reprimand for the events but nonetheless came in for much criticism. One fellow officer noted, “Selfridge of the Cairo found two torpedoes and removed them by placing his vessel over them.” Selfridge himself wrote in later years that he had pushed “perhaps a little farther to the front than prudence dictated.” The navy abandoned efforts to salvage the Cairo in 1863, and it remained hidden in the thick Yazoo mud for nearly 100 years. Efforts to locate the wreck paid off in 1956, and in the early 1960s the remains, still largely intact, were raised and removed to the National Battlefield Park at Vicksburg, where they are now displayed. The adjacent Cairo Museum houses artifacts recovered from the wreck. Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Baron de Kalb, USS; Cairo-Class River Ironclads; Carondelet, USS; Eads, James Buchanan; Foote, Andrew Hull; Fort Pillow, Tennessee; Memphis, First Battle of; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Pittsburg, USS; Riv-

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erine Warfare; Selfridge, Thomas Oliver, Jr.; Tinclads; Torpedoes; Vicksburg Campaign; Walke, Henry; Yazoo River

References Bearss, Edwin C. Hardluck Ironclad: The Sinking and Salvage of the Cairo. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1966. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 23. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1910.

Cairo-class River Ironclads The seven Cairo-class U.S. ironclads (also known as the City class, as the ships were all named for cities along the Mississippi and Ohio rivers) were built by James Buchanan Eads for use on the shallow inland waterways of the western theater. These seven ships became the core of the U.S. Navy’s Mississippi Squadron. Eads met with President Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet at the end of April 1861 and urged the construction of shallow-draft armored gunboats for use on the great western rivers. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles subsequently ordered John Lenthall, chief of the navy’s Bureau of Construction and Repair, to submit a design for such ships. Lenthall, whose experiences lay with deep-water ships, provided a preliminary design of a craft measuring 170 feet in length, with a 28-foot beam and a 5-foot draft, which was then submitted to naval constructor Samuel M. Pook. Pook realized that the narrow beam, while necessary for the high seas, was not needed on rivers and instead proposed a ship 175 feet in length, with a beam of 50 feet and draft of 6 feet. He also added a rectangular casemate to rise above the gun deck at an angle of 35 degrees. This protective shell housed a single paddle wheel in the center of the ship as an alternative to the vulnerable side-mounted paddle wheel. Iron plating was fastened on top of the casemate. A. Thomas Merritt, a steam engineer from Cincinnati, Ohio, provided suggestions on engine construction. Eads received Pook’s design on August 7, 1861, when he was awarded the government contract to build the boats on a low bid of $89,600 each. The contract stipulated that he must deliver seven vessels to Cairo, Illinois, by October 10, 1861, meaning that he had just 65 days in which to construct them. Eads’s years of experience with snag boats (powerful steamboats used to drag obstructions from the river) proved invaluable. He leased two dry docks to begin construction: one at Union Marine Iron Works at Carondelet, Missouri, and the other at Marine Railway and Shipyard at Mound City, Illinois.

94 |â•‡ Cairo-class River Ironclads

Within two weeks, Eads had amassed a workforce of some 4,000 men. Lights were installed at the docks to allow construction to proceed around the clock. The Carondelet slid into the Mississippi River on October 12, 1861, followed by the St. Louis, Louisville, Pittsburg, Cairo, Mound City, and Cincinnati in the following weeks. Known as “Pook Turtles” for their appearance, the new ironclads entered service at 175 feet in length, with a beam of 51 feet, 2 inches, draft of 6 feet, and displacement of 512 tons. The flat-bottomed hulls were laid across three keels, with the outer keels 10 feet apart from the center to support the wide beam. Their casemates rose above the waterline at a 35-degree angle and were plated with 2.5-inch thick iron plating; the plates themselves were 13 inches wide by 8.5 feet long and locked together with overlapping lips. The wood oak planking of the casemates on which the iron plates were bolted was 24 inches thick forward and 12.5 inches on the sides and aft. The amount of weight that could be placed above deck was limited; therefore, three vital areas could not be adequately armored: the stern, the quarterdeck, and the roof of the casemate, known as the hurricane deck. A conical pilothouse was placed on the hurricane deck to protect the navigator. One paddle wheel, 22 feet in diameter and 18 feet wide, was placed in an opening in the center of the vessel under the protection of the casemate. Five boilers, 3 feet in diameter and 25 feet long with a brick furnace at each front end, were placed below decks. Each Cairoclass ironclad was armed with 13 guns: three 8-inch smoothbores, four 42-pounder rifled guns, and six 32-pounders, three on the bow, four on each side, and two on the stern. The Cairo, Carondelet, Cincinnati, Louisville, Mound City, Pittsburg, and St. Louis were all commissioned in January 1862. They performed excellent service in the river campaigns that followed. William E. Whyte III See also Amphibious Warfare; Anaconda Strategy; Baron De Kalb, USS; Benton, USS; Cairo, USS; Cairo Naval Station; Carondelet, USS; Cincinnati, USS; Eads, James Buchanan; Essex, USS; Foote, Andrew Hull; Lenthall, John; Lincoln, Abraham; Louisville, USS; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Mound City, USS; Pittsburg, USS; Porter, David Dixon; Riverine Warfare; Rodgers, John; Welles, Gideon

References Dorset, Phyllis F. “James B. Eads: Navy Shipbuilder, 1861.” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings (August 1975): 76–79. Gadner, Elmer L., Jr. “Eads and the Navy of the Mississippi.” American Heritage: Invention and Technology Magazine 9 (Spring 1994): 1–5. Milligan, John D. “From Theory to Application: The Emergence of the American Ironclad War Vessel.” Military Affairs 48 (July 1984): 126–132. Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 21. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1908.

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Cairo Naval Station Located at the strategic confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers in the far southern tip of Illinois, the small town of Cairo (pronounced regionally as Kay-ro) was the logistical center for both Union navy and army operations in the western theater. This low, marshy peninsula, protected by stone levees, was the staging area for the Union conquest of the Mississippi River as outlined, generally, by general in chief Lieutenant General Winfield Scott. In April 1861, Illinois governor Richard Yates took matters into his own hands when he ordered the state militia to fortify the river hamlet, which was then strewn with Southern sympathizers (indeed, this part of Illinois is more Southern in culture than it is Northern). This occupation was followed by a buildup of U.S. Army troops, succeeded by the Union river flotilla. Commander John Rodgers first and then subsequently Flag Officer Andrew Foote established their headquarters there. From Cairo, Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant launched his successful campaigns against Belmont, Missouri (November 7, 1861); Fort Henry (February 6, 1862); and Fort Donelson (February 12–16, 1862). As the war progressed farther south, additional naval administrative staff arrived at Cairo to handle supplies, recruitment, and deployments. Colliers teeming with coal shoved off around the clock to keep the flotilla fueled. Naval courts were formed to deal with infractions, and brigs were established to imprison convicted sailors. An auxiliary force of mechanics was also established at Cairo to handle repairs of the river steam vessels. Besides soldiers and sailors, the town also attracted gamblers, saloon keepers, runaway slaves, Confederate spies, prostitutes, and all sorts of miscreants. One evening, 260 naval enlistees from Boston got into a drunken brawl. Major General Grant returned to his former command location in 1863 to formulate the strategy for the Vicksburg Campaign with Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter. Their base of operations at Cairo, Illinois, ensured that Union forces on the Mississippi were well supplied throughout the war. William E. Whyte III See also Amphibious Warfare; Anaconda Strategy; Belmont, Battle of; Cairo-Class River Ironclads; Discipline, Naval; Eads, James Buchanan; Foote, Andrew Hull; Fort Donelson, Battle of; Fort Henry, Battle of; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Mound City Naval Station; Ohio River; Porter, David Dixon; Riverine Warfare; Rodgers, John; Timberclads; Vicksburg Campaign

References Kionka, T. K. Key Command: Ulysses S. Grant’s District of Cairo. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2006. Merrill, James M. “Cairo, Illinois: Strategic Civil War River Port.” Journal of Illinois State History 76 (Winter 1983): 242–256. Smith, Myron J., Jr. The Timberclads in the Civil War: The Lexington, Conestoga and Tyler on the Western Waters. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008.

96 |â•‡ Carondelet, USS

Carondelet, USS One of the seven Cairo-class (City-class) ironclads built by James B. Eads in the autumn of 1861. Constructed at St. Louis, Missouri, and commissioned on January 15, 1862, the Carondelet displaced 512 tons, was 175 feet long, and had a beam of 51 feet, two inches and draft of 6 feet. The ironclad was also known as a “Pook Turtle” for designer Samuel Pook’s iron casemate. As a member of the Western Gunboat Flotilla, the Carondelet participated in the campaigns against Forts Henry (February 6, 1862) and Donelson (February 12–16, 1862). It also took part in the campaign for Island Number 10 (March–April 1862), when its captain, Commander Henry Walke, volunteered to attempt to pass his ship past the Confederate batteries on the island. This accomplished, army forces commanded by Brigadier General John Pope were free to cross the river and envelop the island. After participating in the bombardment of Fort Pillow (April 13, 1862), along with the battles of Plum Point (May 10, 1862) and Memphis (June 6, 1862), the Carondelet was damaged and run aground by the Confederate ironclad Arkansas on July 15, 1862. Upon return to service, the ironclad took part in the Yazoo River Expedition (November 21–December 11, 1862) and the Steele’s Bayou Expedition (March 14–26, 1863). It ran past the Vicksburg batteries on April 16, 1863, and took part in the bombardment of Grand Gulf, Mississippi, on April 29, 1863.

Illustration showing the Union ironclad Carondelet running the gauntlet of Confederate artillery fire at Island No. 10 during the night of April 4-5, 1862. (Library of Congress)

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The ironclad saw service throughout the Vicksburg Campaign, including several bombardments of that place. It then took part in the Red River Campaign (March 10–May 22, 1864). The vessel attacked Bell’s Mill along the Cumberland River in Tennessee on December 3–4, 1864. The Carondelet was decommissioned on June 20, 1865, and sold on November 29. William E. Whyte III See also Amphibious Warfare; Arkansas, CSS; Arkansas, CSS, Union Attempts to Destroy; Brown, Isaac Newton; Cairo-Class River Ironclads; Cumberland River; Eads, James Buchanan; Foote, Andrew Hull; Fort Donelson, Battle of; Fort Henry, Battle of; Fort Pillow, Tennessee; Grand Gulf, Mississippi, Union Shelling of; Island Number 10, Battle of; Memphis, First Battle of; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Plum Point Bend, Battle of; Porter, David Dixon; Red River Campaign; Riverine Warfare; Steele’s Bayou Expedition; Vicksburg, Mississippi, Mississippi Squadron Passage of; Vicksburg Campaign; Walke, Henry; Yazoo Pass Expedition; Yazoo River

References Joiner, Gary D. Mr. Lincoln’s Brown Water Navy: The Mississippi Squadron. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007. Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. Smith, Myron J., Jr. The USS Carondelet: A Civil War Ironclad on Western Waters. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2010. Tucker, Spencer C. Andrew Foote: Civil War Admiral on Western Waters. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000.

Carter, Jonathan H. Birth Date: Unknown Death Date: 1887 Confederate Navy officer. Jonathan H. Carter was born in North Carolina. He received a midshipman’s warrant in the U.S. Navy on March 12, 1840. A member of the first class at the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Carter was promoted to passed midshipman on July 11, 1846. Promoted to master on March 1, 1855, he was promoted to lieutenant on September 14, 1855. At the beginning of the Civil War, Carter resigned his commission on April 25, 1861. He was commissioned in the Confederate Navy two days later. Ordered to the New Orleans station, Carter supervised conversion of the side-wheel steamer Ed Howard into CSS General Polk (armed with three guns), which was commissioned in December 1861. Carter subsequently assisted with the evacuation of Confederate forces from New Madrid, Missouri, and saw action at Tiptonville, Tennessee. Carter fired the General Polk at Yazoo City in the Yazoo River on June 26, 1862, to prevent its capture by Union forces.

98 |â•‡ Carter, Samuel Powhatan

Promoted to first lieutenant on October 23, 1862, with date of rank from October 2, Carter was ordered to supervise the construction of gunboats on the Red River. He oversaw construction of the ironclad CSS Missouri at Shreveport, Louisiana. The ship was commissioned in September 1863 and Carter then commanded it on the Red River during 1863–1865. On the night of September 4, 1864, Carter and part of the Missouri’s crew took part in an unsuccessful attempt to capture the U.S. gunboat Rattler on the Mississippi River. Low water levels, in part the result of deliberate Confederate actions to stymie the progress of Rear Admiral David D. Porter’s squadron up the Red River, prevented participation of the Missouri in that campaign. In March 1865, river levels allowed Carter to move the Missouri downriver to Alexandria, Louisiana, where he surrendered his ship to Union forces on May 26, 1865; Carter was paroled on June 7, 1865. After the war, Carter remained in Louisiana and ran a cotton plantation in Bossier Parish during 1866–1871 when financial problems forced him to give up the venture. Carter died in Shirley, Virginia, sometime in 1887. Spencer C. Tucker See also Ironclads, Confederate; Island Number 10, Battle of; Mississippi River; Missouri, CSS; Naval Academy, United States; Porter, David Dixon; Red River; Red River Campaign; Riverine Warfare; Yazoo River

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Jeter, Katherine Brash. A Man and His Boat: The Civil War Career and Correspondence of Lieutenant Jonathan H. Carter, CSN. Lafayette: Center for Louisiana Studies, University of Louisiana, 1996. Register of Officers of the Confederate States Navy, 1861–1865: As Compiled and Revised by the Office of Naval Records and Library, United States Navy Department, 1931, from All Available Data. With a new introduction by John M. Carroll. Mattituck, NY: J. M. Carroll, 1981. [Originally published by the Naval Record and Library, U.S. Navy Department, in 1898 and revised in 1931.] Still, William N., Jr. Iron Afloat: The Story of the Confederate Armorclads. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1985.

Carter, Samuel Powhatan Birth Date: August 6, 1819 Death Date: May 26, 1891 U.S. Navy and U.S. Army officer. Born in Elizabethtown, Tennessee, on August 6, 1819, Samuel Powhatan Carter was educated at Washington College in Virginia and at the College of New Jersey. He received a midshipman’s warrant on February

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14, 1840. Carter served on ships of the Pacific Squadron, on the Great Lakes, and in the Home Squadron. Assigned to the new U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1845, Carter was in its first graduating class, being promoted to passed midshipman on July 11, 1846. Carter served on the ship of the line Ohio and took part in the siege of Veracruz during the Mexican-American War. He held a shore billet with the U.S. Naval Observatory and then served in the Mediterranean Squadron. He subsequently returned to the Naval Academy as an instructor and served in the East India Squadron. Carter was promoted to master on September 12, 1854, and to lieutenant on April 18, 1855. At the beginning of 1861, Carter had been in the navy for 20 years: 11 years’ service at sea, 8 years in shore assignments, and nearly 2 years awaiting orders in a navy with too many officers for billets available. At the beginning of the Civil War, Lieutenant Carter was serving on the screw sloop USS Seminole in the Brazil Squadron. Impressed because Carter remained loyal to the Union and was from Tennessee, Senator Andrew Johnson and others arranged to have him detailed on special duty with the army to recruit soldiers from that contested state. Within a month, Carter had raised the 2nd Tennessee Volunteer Regiment and was its colonel. A month later, he was in command of a brigade. On May 1, 1862, Carter received a commission as a brigadier general of volunteers, and the next month he took part in operations against Cumberland Gap. In 1863, Carter led cavalry raids that defeated Confederate forces at Holston, Carter’s Station, and Jonesville, Tennessee. These Union victories reduced pressure on Union forces under Major General William Rosecrans at Murfreesboro. In March 1865, Carter commanded the left wing of Union forces in the Battle of Kinston, North Carolina, and that same month he was brevetted a major general of volunteers. Carter, who had been promoted to lieutenant commander in the navy on July 16, 1863, and to commander on June 25, 1865, mustered out of the army on January 16, 1866. Carter returned to the navy and served at sea for the next three years and was briefly commandant of the Philadelphia Navy Yard during 1869–1870. Promoted to captain on October 28, 1870, Carter served as commandant of midshipman at the Naval Academy during 1870–1873. Again assigned sea duty during 1873–1876, he was then in shore assignments including service as a member of the Lighthouse Board, until his retirement on August 6, 1881. He was promoted to commodore on November 13, 1879, thus becoming the first individual to serve as a flag officer in both the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy (Henry H. Lockwood, who served as a general in the Civil War, also later made flag rank in the army). Carter was promoted to rear admiral on the retired list on May 16, 1882. Carter died in Washington, D.C., on May 26, 1891. Spencer C. Tucker See also Lockwood, Henry Hayes; Naval Academy, United States; Philadelphia Navy Yard

100 |â•‡ Charleston, South Carolina


Chaffin’s Bluff, Battle of See Fort Harrison and Chaffin’s Bluff, Battle of

Charleston, South Carolina One of the Confederacy’s most important cities, located on the central coast of South Carolina about 100 miles north of Savannah, Georgia. Charleston, with an 1860 population of 40,522 people, was one of the South’s principal ports and was considered its most culturally significant city. It was also a hotbed of secessionist sentiment, where the Civil War’s first shots were fired. Shortly after the creation of the Confederate States of America in February 1861, more than 7,000 soldiers garrisoned the city and manned cannon on the islands guarding the harbor’s ship channel. Brigadier General Pierre G. T. Beauregard assumed command of Charleston’s forces in March 1861 and presided over the bombardment of Union-held Fort Sumter during April 12–14, 1861, in the first engagement of the war. The Confederates strengthened the fortifications at Charleston throughout the summer as ships of the Union’s South Atlantic Blockading Squadron instituted a blockade. Although the vast majority of ships that tried to run the blockade in and out of the port succeeded, by the end of the first year of the war fewer ships slipped through because the Union had more and faster ships on station. Charleston was symbolically important as the birthplace of secessionism and was economically valuable as a port city and the home to various industrial firms. In consequence, Union leaders were determined to capture the city. The first attempt came in June 1862 when 6,000 men landed on nearby James Island. Many citizens panicked and fled from the city as 500 Confederates successfully defended a line anchored by cannon while inflicting 700 casualties on the attackers. Beauregard returned to Charleston as commander of the Department of South Carolina and Georgia in 1862. Utilizing slave labor, Beauregard improved the city defenses. These measures included increasing the number of guns guarding the city, digging trenches to discourage an attack by land, and mining the harbor. Frame mines, consisting of large artillery shells held in a wooden frame submerged in shallow water, were particularly effective and a deterrent to a Union

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naval assault. The Confederates also occasionally sortied against the Union blockaders offshore. The David, a 50-foot steam-powered torpedo boat that carried an explosive warhead on the end of a spar, successfully attacked but did not badly damage the Union ironclad New Ironsides on October 5, 1863. The H. L. Hunley was the first submarine ever to sink a ship when it attacked the screw sloop USS Housatonic in Charleston Harbor on February 17, 1864. In April 1863, Rear Admiral Samuel Du Pont mounted a major attack against the city’s defenses by bombarding Fort Sumter with nine ironclads. The defenders damaged five of the warships, one of which subsequently sank, and forced the flotilla to withdraw. Later that year, Union authorities conceived of a joint operation against Charleston that called for Major General Quincy A. Gillmore to attack Fort Sumter and Morris Island’s Fort Wagner while Union warships, now under Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren, slipped into the harbor. Gillmore’s 6,000 men attacked Fort Wagner but suffered heavy casualties. Unable to capture the stronghold, his men dug trenches and brought up large artillery pieces that could hit Charleston some four miles away. Gillmore gave Beauregard an ultimatum to surrender both Morris Island and Fort Sumter. The Confederates refused, and Union forces began firing on Fort Sumter but also on Charleston on August 22, 1864. Charleston remained unbowed but beleaguered. The effective naval blockade and wartime economy created shortages and drove up prices. Many stores closed. Destruction resulting from a large fire that had incinerated hundreds of buildings during the previous winter further impeded the quality of daily life. City officials instituted martial law for a time in part because of the disorderly conduct of soldiers. Morale deteriorated and desertions among the 10,000 soldiers defending the city became common. The municipal government sought to alleviate hardship by subsidizing purchases of staples, but thousands of poor people were forced to rely on private charitable efforts for survival. The city was shelled, sometimes heavily, from August 1863 until the war’s end in April 1865. The threat of an assault on the city increased dramatically after U.S. major general William T. Sherman’s Union troops captured Savannah, Georgia, in December 1864. Beauregard realized that Sherman’s subsequent march toward Columbia would isolate Charleston and make its defenders’ position untenable. On February 18, 1865, about 10,000 Confederate soldiers withdrew from the city as elements of the U.S. Army’s 52nd Pennsylvania Volunteers and 3rd Rhode Island Artillery under Lieutenant Colonel Augustus G. Bennett moved unopposed into the city to accept its surrender. Matthew Krogman See also Amphibious Warfare; Blockade of the Confederacy; Blockade-Runners; Charleston, South Carolina, CSA Navy Attack on U.S. Navy Blockaders; Charleston, South Carolina, Du Pont’s Attack on; Dahlgren, John Adolph Bernard; Du Pont, Samuel Francis; Fort Sumter, South Carolina; Fort Sumter, Union Attacks on; Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, Relief Efforts and Beginning of the Civil War; Fox, Gustavus Vasa; H. L. Hunley, CSS;

102 |â•‡ Charleston, South Carolina, CSA Navy Attack on U.S. Navy Blockaders Housatonic, USS; Morris Island, South Carolina, Union Operations against; New Ironsides, USS; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Spar Torpedo; Stone Fleets; Torpedoes

References Coker, P. C., III. Charleston’s Maritime Heritage, 1670–1865. Charleston: CokerCraft, 1987. Detzer, David. Allegiance: Fort Sumter, Charleston and the Beginning of the Civil War. New York: Harcourt, 2001. Foote, Shelby. The Civil War: A Narrative, Vol. 3, Red River to Appomattox. New York: Random House, 1974. Fraser, Walter J., Jr. Charleston! Charleston! The History of a Southern City. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1989. Grimsley, Mark, and Brooks D. Simpson, eds. The Collapse of the Confederacy. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001.

Charleston, South Carolina, CSA Navy Attack on U.S. Navy Blockaders Event Date: January 31, 1863 As Rear Admiral Samuel F. Du Pont, commander of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, was contemplating his naval assault on Charleston, early on the morning of January 31, 1863, Confederate flag officer Duncan N. Ingraham took advantage of thick fog to sortie from Charleston with the ironclad rams Palmetto State (Commander John Rutledge) and Chicora (Commander John R. Tucker) to attack the wooden steamers of the Union blockading squadron lying off the harbor. The Palmetto State was able to approach the U.S. Navy side-wheeler Mercedita (Captain Henry S. Stellwagen) undetected. Before it was spotted and the alarm given, the Palmetto State had closed to a point where the Mercedita was unable to depress its own guns sufficiently to fire into the Confederate ship. Rammed and fired on, the Mercedita lost seven men killed and wounded, most of them firemen and coal passers who were scalded when a Confederate shell passed through its steam chimney. Stellwagen subsequently characterized the Mercedita as “being in a sinking and perfectly defenseless condition,” and he surrendered the ship and sent his executive officer, Lieutenant Commander Trevett Abbot, to the Palmetto State. Abbot agreed to a Confederate demand that none of the Mercedita’s officers and crew again “take up arms” against the Confederacy. The Chicora, meanwhile, attacked the large U.S. Navy side-wheeler Keystone State, hitting the Union ship 10 times, disabling its machinery, and setting it on fire. The Keystone State suffered 20 dead and a like number wounded, a quarter of its crew. Other Union warships—the Augusta, Quaker City, and Memphis—then arrived. Although it had two feet of water in its hold and was leaking badly, the Keystone State did not sink. Lieutenant Commander Pendleton Watmough was able to bring

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his screw steamer Memphis up in time and tow the Keystone State to safety. A Union court subsequently upheld Abbot’s pledge given on behalf of the crew that they would not fight again, but the court also determined that this did not apply to the ship itself, which was returned to service. Meanwhile, the two other Union gunboats, the Quaker City and Augusta, engaged the Confederate rams. Both were damaged in the exchange of fire. The Quaker State took a shell amidships that exploded in the engine room and caused considerable damage, and the Augusta sustained a shell in the side of the ship that narrowly missed its boiler. Both ships survived. At that point Captain William R. Taylor’s screw sloop Housatonic arrived and took the rams under fire, chasing them back into Charleston Harbor. Confederate commander at Charleston General P. G. T. Beauregard praised Ingraham for his “brilliant achievement” and claimed that the engagement had broken the Union blockade. Despite the damage wrought by the rams, that was not the case. Within hours of the engagement, however, the Confederates appealed to the British consul at Charleston, claiming that the Union ships had left their picket line, rendering the blockade ineffective and arguing that, in accordance with international law, it should be lifted. Union captain Taylor of the Housatonic, however, proved by his ship’s log and signed statement of his officers that his ship had fired on the two Confederate ships and indeed chased them back into the harbor. The blockade of Charleston thus continued, considerably strengthened by the arrival on February 1 of the ironclad USS New Ironsides. Spencer C. Tucker See also Blockade of the Confederacy; Charleston, South Carolina; Du Pont, Samuel Francis; Ingraham, Duncan Nathaniel; Ironclads, Confederate; Housatonic, USS; New Ironsides, USS; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Tucker, John Randolph

References Browning, Robert M., Jr. Success Is All That Was Expected: The South Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War. Dulles, VA: Brassey’s, 2002. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 13. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1901.

Charleston, South Carolina, Du Pont’s Attack on Event Date: April 7, 1863 The port city of Charleston, South Carolina, was an especially powerful symbol to both sides in the Civil War. Northerners regarded Charleston as the “Cradle of the Rebellion.” The Ordinance of Secession had been signed there, and the first

104 |â•‡ Charleston, South Carolina, Du Pont’s Attack on

shots of the war had been fired in its harbor. Thus, quite apart from its continuous blockade-running, Northern leaders had strong incentive to seek to close or to take Charleston. Indeed, Union operations against that city developed into the longest campaign of the war. Taking Charleston would not end the war, but a Union success there would deliver a heavy blow to Southern morale. However, Northern leaders seem not to have understood the effects on both North and South of a Union failure there. Flag Officer Samuel F. Du Pont commanded Union forces off that city. He had been commander of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron since September 1861. Du Pont’s impressive success against Port Royal, South Carolina, in November 1861 seemed to bode well for future U.S. Navy aggressive operations along the south Atlantic coast. Indeed, immediately after the seizure of Port Royal, Du Pont had appealed for a joint army-navy operation against Charleston but had been rebuffed. That opportunity, if in fact it had existed, soon vanished, however. Throughout the long operations against Charleston, Du Pont consistently held to the view that the city would only be taken through combined land and sea assault. He wrote this to his friend Commodore Theodorus Bailey on October 30, 1862: “I feel that very heavy work is before me, for there seems a morbid appetite in the land to have Charleston.â•¯.â•¯.â•¯. If a single tithe of that Potomac army had been sent to this region after the capture of the forts here, Savannah and Charleston would have fallen with scarcely any loss of life under a joint operation. The difficulties to be overcome have increased a thousandfold since then.â•¯.â•¯.â•¯. The Department thinks it can be done with a few monitors.” At the end of 1861, with his ships operating from the Union base at Port Royal, Du Pont attempted to block the main ship channel at Charleston or at least render it difficult for blockaders to navigate at night. On December 20, the blockaders sank the “stone fleet,” a number of hulks filled with rocks. Powerful tides and storms soon washed this obstruction away, however. Following this failure, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles and others in Washington, including President Abraham Lincoln, favored an assault by ships alone. They believed that a powerful force of ironclads might simply push past Fort Sumter, rather than attempt to batter it into submission, and force the Confederates to withdraw from the other forts and from James Island. Charleston would then simply surrender, just as New Orleans had yielded to Flag Officer David G. Farragut’s West Gulf Blockading Squadron. With the “panic” that would ensue following the fall of Charleston, the Union ironclads might then move against Savannah. Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gustavus V. Fox especially championed this view. A passionate believer in the capabilities of the new monitors, he saw in Charleston the opportunity for the navy to win glory, with the army largely a spectator. Clearly a joint operation with the army would require many more men than the 10,000 troops under Major General David Hunter at Hilton Head Island, some 100 miles to the south. In any case, substantial land forces were simply not available,


given the requirements of the concurrent Vicksburg Campaign. If Charleston was to be attacked and taken, the navy would have to do it alone. Indeed, by December 1862 there was considerable pressure on the navy to offset the Union failures on land, including the failure of Major General Ulysses S. Grant’s first attempt against Vicksburg and the bloody Union repulse of Confederate troops under Major General Ambrose E. Burnside at Fredericksburg. By the end of 1862, however, Charleston was well prepared to meet any attack. Confederate forces there had continually strengthened its forts to the point that by 1862 it was probably the best-defended port in the Western Hemisphere and certainly the Southern city best able to withstand a seaborne assault. Charleston boasted an integrated defensive system of some 385 land-based guns; the ironclad rams Chicora and Palmetto State (two others, the Charleston and Columbia, were being built); obstructions blocking the river and harbor approaches; torpedoes (underwater mines); and prepared positions into which the relatively small numbers of Confederate troops available could nonetheless be moved on short notice. By 1863, Charleston’s defenses were in three separate circles or defensive tiers. These consisted of an outer layer on the Atlantic barrier islands astride the mouth of the harbor, along with the central position of Fort Sumter to cover the channel; a tier of artillery batteries in the inner harbor in order to take under fire any Union ships that broke through; and a tier of land forts to protect the flanks and guard against an attack from that quarter similar to that mounted by the British when they captured the city in 1780 during the Revolutionary War. Not only man-made obstacles stood in the Union path. Strong tidal currents in the harbor could run three to five knots, posing a problem for the slow monitors, and the shallows of Charleston Bar blocked direct entrance to the harbor. A series of irregular breaks in the bar permitted deep-draft ships to utilize the Main Ship, Swash, and North channels, but only light-draft vessels could use the rightmost Maffitt’s Channel (also known as Sullivan’s Island Channel), which in any case ran hard against Fort Sullivan. Navigation in and out of Charleston was difficult even in normal times; it was rendered much more perilous because the defenders removed buoys marking the channel, meaning that the wide and deep Main Ship Channel was the only safe approach for an attacker. The Confederate forts were particularly well sited for defensive purposes. Facing Charleston from the sea, to the left of the harbor entrance lay Morris Island, with Fort Wagner and Battery Gregg. Immediately ahead and just inside the harbor entrance was pentagon-shaped Fort Sumter; to the right of the main entrance were Sullivan’s Island and its principal works of Fort Moultrie, along with Batteries Bee and Beauregard. Any attacking naval force reaching the harbor mouth would be subjected to fire from three sides: Battery Gregg, Fort Sumter, and Fort Multrie. Charleston’s inner defenses against attack from the sea were also impressive. These consisted of Fort Johnson and Battery Glover on James Island, Fort Ripley and Castle Pinckney in the harbor itself, and the White Point Battery (Battery


Ramsay) in Charleston. Sumter, which was of brick, and Moultrie, of masonryfaced earth, were the two most powerful works in the defensive system. All save Sumter were earthworks or masonry-clad earthworks, low lying and difficult for naval gunfire to destroy. Ironclads were the key to the Union plan. Welles—indeed official Washington— and much of Northern public opinion believed that sufficient numbers of monitors and the ironclad New Ironsides could not fail to smash their way into the harbor, and in early October 1862 Welles summoned Du Pont to Washington to discuss the impending operation. Du Pont was not impressed by the department’s belief that ships alone would be successful. He wrote in January 1863, “I have never had but one opinion—that the capture of Charleston should be effected by a joint operation of Army & Navy—not that I am insensible to a Naval capture—but that Success is a vital necessity now, and no means should be spared to secure this.” With a realistic view of the chances of success against Charleston, Du Pont wanted the most powerful force available, and he continually pressed Fox to provide additional ironclads. Fox and Welles ultimately sent Du Pont all but one of the navy’s new monitors. By the spring of 1863, however, Welles was clearly impatient over Du Pont’s failure to move. Du Pont’s reticence was not only over the number of ironclads he would have available in an assault, but their well-demonstrated mechanical problems and growing doubts within the navy of their ability to destroy shore fortifications. He also wanted to give the new XV-inch Dahlgrens a combat test. On three occasions—January 27, February 1, and February 18, 1863, Du Pont sent the Passaic-class monitor Montauk against Fort McAllister, an earthwork fortification mounting eight or nine guns and located on the Ogeechee River in Georgia. While the Montauk was able, on the last occasion, to destroy the Confederate commerce raider Nashville, the fort itself was unbowed and what damage was inflicted had been easily repaired overnight. Plainly worried over the Montauk’s unsatisfactory forays, Du Pont wrote a friend, “If one ironclad cannot take eight guns, how are five to take 147 guns in Charleston harbor?” Indeed, on its third foray, the Montauk struck a Confederate torpedo and the damage took several weeks to repair. On January 31, 1863, as Du Pont continued to build up his naval strength, the Confederate ironclad rams Chicora and Palmetto State sortied from Charleston to attack the wooden Union blockading warships, badly damaging four of them before being chased off by the arrival of the screw sloop Housatonic. The blockade of Charleston continued, considerably strengthened by the arrival there on February 1 of the ironclad New Ironsides. On March 3, Du Pont ordered a fourth attack against Fort McAllister, this time by the monitors Passaic, Patapsco, and Nahant, along with three gunboats and three mortar schooners. The inconclusive nature of the operations against McAllister gave heart to Charleston’s defenders, who now tended to denigrate the monitors. In spite of their ability to withstand punishment, it took nearly seven minutes


to ready one of the giant 15-inch guns for firing, slowing the paired 11-inch gun to the same rate. This rate of fire rendered these ships simply incapable of inflicting the sort of damage necessary to reduce shore fortifications in a short span of time. This was especially true against Charleston, given the time necessary to work the ships into position. During the first week in April the remaining monitors arrived. Du Pont chose the New Ironsides as his flagship for the operation. Representing half the firepower of the Union fleet at Charleston, it was the best suited of all its large ships for shore bombardment. Because the New Ironside’s wooden spar deck was vulnerable to plunging fire, its crew protected it with green rawhides covered with sandbags. The men also erected similar barricades of sandbags below decks to protect against raking fire from bow or stern. The monitors received additional deck plating against plunging fire, and vulnerable surfaces were liberally coated with tallow so that projectiles would be more likely to glance off. Du Pont understood the risks of mounting an attack inside Charleston Harbor. The Union ships would have to navigate around numerous obstacles in the channel and, should one of them become hung up on one of these, it would be easy prey for destruction by the shore batteries. Torpedoes also posed a significant threat. Du Pont hoped to partially deflect this threat with a new device, known from its appearance as a bootjack. Invented by John Ericsson and the only countertorpedo device available, it consisted of a raft shaped to fit around the monitor’s bows and pushed ahead by it. The bootjack was equipped with grapnels to snare torpedoes. Ericsson also planned to place a torpedo at the end of each raft to be detonated when it came into contact with an obstacle, thereby destroying it. This part of the bootjack was eliminated for fear that it would endanger other warships. The deep draft of the New Ironsides and its lack of maneuverability were also problems. Du Pont settled on an attack from inside the harbor. This would distance his ships from Fort Moultrie and provide deeper water for maneuvering. It would also place his ships where he believed certain of the Confederate forts could not fire on them. The Confederate defenders, although mistaken in their expectation of a joint army-navy assault, nonetheless anticipated Du Pont’s basic plan. They expected the Union monitors to run to several hundred yards from Fort Sumter, where they would be protected from the parapet and upper guns of the fort and then attempt to breach the fort. Du Pont’s plan had the squadron running the outer Confederate defenses as well as Fort Sumter and then destroying Sumter from the north and northwest. British experiments suggested that ironclads were relatively safe from return fire at a range of 1,200–1,300 yards, and Captain John Rodgers of the monitor Weehawken suggested the ships form an arc formation and then anchor at that distance, both to improve their accuracy of fire and to keep them safe from torpedoes. Du Pont, however, preferred an attack at half that distance, even with the increased risk to his ships, in order to enhance the accuracy of his relatively small number of


guns. Part of this had to do with his new XV-inch Dahlgrens. They fired 400-pound projectiles (as opposed to 170-pound balls for the XI-inch guns). The XV-inchers were so new that they had not been adequately tested, and chief of the Bureau of Ordnance Dahlgren had advised Du Pont that he thought their useful life would be about 300 rounds. Given this and their slow rate of fire, Du Pont no doubt believed that accuracy of fire trumped all other considerations. Du Pont issued his orders on April 4. Although attacking at night would have rendered the ironclads much more difficult to hit, the great difficulty of maneuvering them in the tricky current during hours of darkness precluded anything other than a daylight attack. Du Pont planned to employ nine ships, all ironclads: the seven monitors, the New Ironsides, and the hybrid Keokuk. Once across the bar, Rodgers’s Weehawken would lead the other ships up the main channel. The flagship New Ironsides would be fifth in the Union battle line for, as the largest ship in the squadron, its signal flags could be more easily seen if the ship was in the middle of the formation. But its deep draft would force it to remain in the middle of the channel, preventing Du Pont from veering out of the line to take the lead, as Farragut had done in the Mississippi before New Orleans. Du Pont would have to rely on Rodgers’s judgment. Du Pont ordered that the Union ships not return fire from the batteries on Morris Island. Instead they would steam into the harbor and then open fire against Sumter, without anchoring, 600–800 yards from the northwest face of the fort. After his squadron had reduced Sumter, Du Pont planned to have the ironclads, joined by the five wooden ships of his reserve squadron, concentrate on shelling Confederate batteries on Morris Island. If Du Pont and some of his captains were uncertain as to their prospects, the men seemed confident. On April 5, steamers towed the monitors to a point off the bar. The Keokuk then proceeded to mark the bar with buoys and report on the depth of water in order to cross it the next morning. This was accomplished, but delays and poor visibility from haze led Du Pont to reschedule the attack for April 7. The Confederate defenders, meanwhile, were fully alerted. Morning haze on April 7 soon burned off, but on the urging of his pilots, Du Pont agreed to delay the attempt until the ebb tide in order to facilitate spotting obstructions in the water. An additional two-hour delay occurred when the grapnels of the Weehawken’s torpedo raft fouled its anchor chain. Finally, at 12:10 p.m., Du Pont ordered signals hoisted for the squadron to get under way and steam at one cable length (200 yard) intervals. Despite difficulty maintaining position in the fast-moving current, by 1:15 p.m. the ships were all moving up the main channel. The Weehawken, however, continued to experience problems with its torpedo raft; in the rise and fall of the seaway, the two structures worked against each other. With the torpedo raft actually loosening the monitor’s armor, Rodgers ordered it cast adrift. The bootjack later washed ashore on Morris Island as a Confederate trophy.


At 2:10 p.m., the Weehawken encountered the first Confederate obstructions extending northeastward across the main channel from Fort Sumter to Fort Moultrie. These consisted of a series of buoys supporting a tangled mass of rope. Respected as a bold commander, Rodgers inspected the obstacles as best he could at close range through the narrow slits in the pilothouse. As he contemplated his next step, a torpedo exploded nearby or under the Weehawken, slightly lifting the ironclad but doing no damage. Wary of the torpedo raft, believing the obstructions too formidable, and fearful that his own ship or others following might become entangled in them and be held in place under the Confederate shore batteries, Rodgers turned his ship aside. This decision threw the remainder of the Union line into further confusion. It also ended Du Pont’s plan of running past the point with the heaviest concentration of Confederate firepower. The obstacles had performed as intended, delaying the lead Union warship and thus the others to follow. The battle began at about 3:00 p.m., when a gun at Fort Moultrie opened up on the Weehawken, then only some 700 yards from Fort Sumter. The shot struck the monitor’s turret squarely but did no damage. Other guns at Fort Moultrie, as well as on Morris Island and at Fort Sumter, then joined in, and soon nearly 100 guns and mortars had commenced firing. For a time the Weehawken disappeared in the spray from the projectiles, and it was assumed in the Union fleet that it had been sunk; however, the monitor soon reappeared. Shortly thereafter Du Pont signaled to return fire. The Union ships then commenced fire on the east and northeast faces of Fort Sumter, but they made no effort to pass the rope obstruction. The battle continued at ranges of between 550 and 800 yards for nearly two hours. With only about a foot of water under its keel and swift current, the New Ironsides had trouble holding the channel, and the monitors Catskill and Nantucket, which were astern, collided with the flagship. The Keokuk, the last Union ship in line, also ran past the flagship and was shortly in difficulty. The battle scene was obscured in smoke so thick that crews on the ships had difficulty seeing their target of Fort Sumter; visibility from the flagship was only about 50 yards. Far from pounding the Confederates into submission, the ships themselves sustained some 400 hits, and a number of the monitors were damaged. The Keokuk was the hardest hit. Protected by four-inch iron armor laid on edgeways and an inch apart with the intervening spaces filled with wood, it proved particularly vulnerable to enemy fire. Running ahead of the crippled Nahant to avoid fouling it in the narrow channel, the Keokuk came to a point within about 600 yards of Fort Sumter’s guns and remained there some 30 minutes. The ironclad was hit some 90 times, 19 of these entering at or below the waterline. Having difficulty keeping his ship afloat, Commander Alexander C. Rhind withdrew from the action and anchored overnight beyond the range of Confederate guns. With the tide having turned and dusk approaching, Du Pont broke off the engagement at 4:30 p.m. Because of their relatively small number of guns, the Union ships had fired only 139 rounds; the Confederates had fired 16 times as many, or


2,229. Casualties were slight on both sides. The Confederates suffered 4 dead or mortally wounded and 10 lesser injuries. The Union ships had 1 killed, in the Nahant, and 22 wounded (16 in the Keokuk, including Rhind, with the remainder in the Nahant). Nothing could conceal the fact that the Confederates had beaten back a major Union effort and gained a stunning victory. Du Pont informed Welles that he had intended to resume the battle the next day, but he changed his mind on receiving damage reports from his captains. The Keokuk’s crew was struggling to keep their ship afloat. The Passaic had suffered the next most damage. Its XI-inch Dahlgren was disabled, and the top of the pilothouse was loosened and its armor bolt broken. The Nantucket had been hit 51 times and its 15-inch gun could not fire on account of a disabled port shutter. The Nahant’s turret was jammed, while the Patapsco’s heavy gun was out of action because of the fracturing of one of the bolts in a cap-square that held it on its mount. The Weehawken had been struck 53 times and some of its armor had been shattered, leaving the wood exposed. The carriage for its 11-inch gun was also disabled. Other monitors also had broken plates and additional problems. Interestingly, the only nonmonitor in the action, the New Ironsides, which had taken more than 60 hits, reported no serious damage, but it also had remained at some distance and fired only one broadside, at Fort Moultrie. Although Union engineers worked during the night to repair the monitors, Du Pont became convinced that another attack would have turned “a failure into a disaster.” He reported to Welles that after listening to the reports of his commanders on the evening of April 7 he had determined not to renew the attack, “for in my judgment, it would have converted a failure into a disaster, and I will only add that Charleston can not be taken by a purely naval attack, and the army could give me no cooperation.” Du Pont went on to note that, even had he been able to enter Charleston Harbor, he would have had only 1,200 men and 32 guns, “but five of the eight ironclads were wholly or partially disabled after a brief engagement.” The admiral’s despair was plainly reflected in these words to his wife, Sophie: “We have failed as I felt sure we would.” The crew of the Keokuk was able to keep their ship afloat that night only because of calm water. Despite assistance from the tug Dandelion, the Keokuk sank the next morning when a wind came up. At 7:40 a.m., Rhind ordered the crew to abandon ship and the monitor went down a half hour later, only its funnels remaining visible. The Confederates later recovered its two 11-inch guns as well as an important signals book. Du Pont now declared that Charleston could not be taken by naval attack alone. He feared the Confederates might sink and then salvage one of his monitors, with the result being that the whole coast might be lost. On April 12, Du Pont ordered the monitors to Port Royal, leaving the New Ironsides as the sole ironclad on Charleston station. This “guardian of the blockade,” as it came to be known, performed yeoman service in the following months.


Du Pont’s prudent position regarding another attack on Charleston became widely known in the North and was mistakenly perceived as defeatism. Although Welles assured Du Pont of the navy department’s continued confidence in him, there were soon calls for his removal. Du Pont sensed the change in attitude from Washington and vigorously defended his actions in extensive correspondence; however, following some deliberation, Welles recalled the admiral on June 3. The secretary gave as his reasons Du Pont’s failure to communicate any plans for the resumption of offensive operations against Charleston. It made little difference, of course, that Du Pont’s assessment of the situation at Charleston was correct. Even had the attack by monitors been successful, there were no army plans in place. The effort had all been an incredible waste of resources. Welles replaced Du Pont with Rear Admiral Andrew H. Foote, but Foote died on June 26 in New York City on his way to take command and was in turn replaced by Lincoln’s favorite rear admiral John A. Dahlgren, who had long sought the position. Dahlgren’s own efforts against Charleston would also end in failure. The city did not fall until February 18, 1865, with the arrival of Union land troops under Major General William T. Sherman. Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Bailey, Theodorus; Blockade of the Confederacy; Blockade-Runners; Charleston, South Carolina, CSA Navy Attack on U.S. Navy Blockaders; Dahlgren, John Adolph Bernard; Du Pont, Samuel Francis; Ericsson, John; Farragut, David Glasgow; Foote, Andrew Hull; Fort McAllister, Georgia, Union Attacks on; Fort Sumter, South Carolina; Fort Sumter, Union Attacks on; Fox, Gustavus Vasa; Housatonic, USS; Ironclads, Confederate; Ironclads, Union; Keokuk, USS; Lincoln, Abraham; Montauk, USS; Nashville, CSS, Cruiser; Passaic-Class Monitors; Rodgers, John; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Stone Fleets; Torpedoes; Welles, Gideon

References Du Pont, Henry A. Rear Admiral Samuel Francis Du Pont, United States Navy: A Biography. New York: National Americana Society, 1926. Du Pont, Samuel F. Samuel F. Du Pont: A Selection from His Civil War Letters. 3 vols. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1969. Fox, Gustavus. Confidential Correspondence of Gustavus Vasa Fox, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, 1861–1865. Edited by Robert Means Thompson and Richard Wainwright. New York: De Vinne, 1918. Johnson, Robert Erwin. Rear Admiral John Rodgers, 1812–1882. Annapolis, MD: U.S. Naval Institute, 1967. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vols. 13 and 14. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1901, 1902. Weddle, Kevin J. Lincoln’s Tragic Admiral: The Life of Samuel Francis Du Pont. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2005. Wise, Stephen R. Gate of Hell: Campaign for Charleston Harbor, 1863. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1994.

112 |â•‡ Charlotte Navy Yard

Charlotte Navy Yard In March 1862, the Norfolk (Gosport) Navy Yard in Norfolk, Virginia, was at risk of being captured by Union forces. After the Battle of Hampton Roads (March 8–9, 1862), Confederate officials decided to move the naval yard’s operations and machinery to Charlotte, North Carolina. The city was located some 200 miles from the Atlantic Ocean, far removed from the Union Navy and occupying Union army forces in eastern North Carolina. Charlotte had rail connections throughout North Carolina and South Carolina to several coastal cities. By May 1862, the Charlotte Navy Yard was operational. It included a gun carriage shop, a torpedo (mine) shop, and a forge with the largest steam hammer in the South. Captain Henry Ashton Ramsay was chief engineer and oversaw the operation that employed approximately 1,500 men. Products of the yard included marine engines, torpedoes, gun carriages, heavy forgings, solid shot, rifle shell, and other projectiles. Until November 1864, the Charlotte Navy Yard operated with relative ease. However, labor shortages toward the end of the war hampered productivity. Near war’s end, the Confederate government provided Captain Ramsey with 300 muskets and ordered him to form three companies of men from among the yard’s employees. The tools and machinery were moved from Charlotte to Lincolnton, North Carolina, but the war ended before the yard could be reassembled and activated. Andrew Duppstadt See also Columbus Navy Yard; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Navy, CSA; Norfolk Navy Yard; Scofield and Markham Gate City Iron Works; Selma Naval Gun Foundry; Shelby Iron Company; Torpedoes; Tredegar Iron Works

References Barrett, John G. The Civil War in North Carolina. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1963. Still, William N., Jr. Confederate Shipbuilding. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1987. Trotter, William R. Silk Flags and Cold Steel: The Civil War in North Carolina, the Piedmont. Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair, 1988.

Chickamauga, CSS The screw steamer Confederate commerce raider Chickamauga was the former blockade-runner Edith. Similar to but smaller than CSS Tallahassee, also a blockade-runner that was converted earlier into a commerce raider, the Edith had been built at London by the firm of John and William Dudgeon and launched in 1863; it was originally owned by Collie and Company. Iron hulled and of 585 tons, it was 175 feet in length, 25 feet in breadth, and had a draft of 7 feet, nine inches.

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Propelled by two screws, it could make almost 13.4 knots. It had two funnels and two masts. The Edith had made nine successful runs through the Union blockade when it was purchased by the Confederate government for conversion into a commerce raider. Acquired in September 1864 and commissioned CSS Chickamauga, it was armed similarly to the Tallahassee with one 84-pounder, two 32-pounders, and two 24-pounders. Well aware of the presence at Wilmington of the Chickamauga and Tallahassee, Acting Rear Admiral Samuel P. Lee, commanding the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, added additional steamers off the port in an effort to keep the two ships from escaping and attacking Union shipping. These measures, while they did not contain the two ships, did result in the capture of a number of blockade-runners, including three of five ships carrying military supplies for North Carolina and the Advance, owned by the state of North Carolina. The loss of the Advance angered North Carolina governor Zebulon Vance, who blamed the loss of the blockaderunners on the presence of the additional Union blockaders off Wilmington to prevent the escape of the Chickamauga and Tallahassee. He demanded that the two commerce raiders be disarmed and converted to transports or blockade-runners. Confederate secretary of the navy Stephen R. Mallory disagreed, but Vance was correct in his assumption, for the increased number of Union warships led to a 20 percent loss rate for blockade-runners from September 1 to December 16, whereas there had been only a 10 percent loss over the previous three months. By late October 1864, both the Chickamauga and Tallahassee (now renamed the Olustee) were ready for sea. The Chickamauga, commanded by Lieutenant John Wilkinson, successfully escaped by means of Old Inlet on the evening of October 28. Although fired on, it did not sustain damage. The Olustee, commanded by Lieutenant William H. Ward, was not so fortunate. It was damaged on its escape the next evening but continued on nonetheless. The Chickamauga took seven prizes, burning four of them and bonding three (the Olustee took and burned six prizes). After 10 days at sea, however, both ships were forced to head south and return to Wilmington. While the Olustee did make it back to Wilmington on the night of November 8, Wilkinson decided to sail the Chickamauga to Bermuda, where he refueled. He departed there on November 15, and on the night of November 19 approached New Inlet. Detected and fired on by Union warships while waiting for the fog to clear, Wilkinson returned fire and, supported by Confederate guns at Fort Fisher, safely made it into port. Wilkinson then traveled to Richmond, where he succeeded in convincing Mallory that the presence of the raiders at Wilmington was severely hampering Confederate blockade-running. He urged that the cruisers be converted to blockade-runners. He secured Mallory’s permission to convert one of them. Since the Chickamauga was known to British authorities in Bermuda as a warship, he returned to Wilmington with orders to convert the Olustee.

114 |â•‡ Chickasaw Bluffs, Battle of

The Chickamauga did not directly assist in the battle for Fort Fisher, although some of its crew manned guns in the fort and it assisted in the defense by transporting ammunition there. The Union capture of Fort Fisher on January 15, however, allowed Union warships to enter the Cape Fear River through Old Inlet and cut off New Inlet. The Chickamauga then served in the defense of Wilmington until February 25, 1865, when on the abandonment of the city by the Confederates, it was sunk in the Cape Fear at Indian Wells in an unsuccessful effort to block that river between Wilmington and Fayetteville. Spencer C. Tucker See also Blockade of the Confederacy; Blockade-Runners; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Fort Fisher Campaign; Lee, Samuel Phillips; Mallory, Stephen Russell; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Tallahassee, CSS; Wilkinson, John; Wilmington, North Carolina, Engagements at

References Hearn, Chester G. Gray Raiders of the Sea: How Eight Confederate Warships Destroyed the Union’s High Seas Commerce. Camden, ME: International Marine Publishing, 1992. Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. U.S. Navy Department, Naval History Division. Civil War Naval Chronology, 1861– 1865. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971. Wise, Stephen R. Lifeline of the Confederacy: Blockade Running during the Civil War. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988.

Chickasaw Bluffs, Battle of Start Date: December 26, 1862 End Date: December 29, 1862 Battle at Chickasaw Bluffs on the Yazoo River north of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Major General Ulysses S. Grant, commander of the Army of the Tennessee, planned a land offensive to take the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg. Given the topography and hydrography, Grant attempted to move overland south from his advanced base at Holly Springs along the Mississippi Central Railroad. He hoped to draw out the bulk of Confederate lieutenant general John C. Pemberton’s 40,000-man Army of Mississippi defending Vicksburg. At the same time, he would send his trusted subordinate Major General William T. Sherman and 32,000 men down the Mississippi River in transports covered by Mississippi Squadron commander Rear Admiral David D. Porter’s gunboats to stage a surprise attack on the few Confederate defenders remaining at Vicksburg. On November 13, 1862, Grant put his own men in motion, driving back Confederate forces under Pemberton. The farther Grant moved south, however, the more vulnerable became his supply/communication lines. Confederate cavalry under

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Brigadier General Nathan Bedford Forrest soon threatened his communication lines all the way back to Columbus, Kentucky, tearing up nearly 50 miles of railroad track, seizing considerable quantities of military supplies, and inflicting some 2,000 Union casualties. On December 20, an even worse calamity befell Grant. As Porter prepared to depart Memphis with Sherman’s troops down the Mississippi and with Grant having drawn off some 20,000 Vicksburg defenders and engaging them outside the town of Granada, Confederate major general Earl Van Dorn led 3,500 cavalry to take Grant’s supply base at Holly Springs, held by only 1,500 Union troops. The Confederates there destroyed vast stocks of food and supplies bound for Grant’s soldiers. Although Van Dorn soon departed ahead of reacting Union cavalry, Grant had no choice but to call off his advance and retrace his steps to Grand Junction. He tried to get word to Sherman, but the telegraph lines had been disabled and the message did not get through. Sherman got word of Holly Springs but not of Grant’s withdrawal. Porter and Sherman, therefore, moved south from Memphis as scheduled on December 20, stopping at Helena, Arkansas, the next day to gather additional forces that brought total Union troop strength up to about 30,000 men. On December 23, Porter and his flotilla of Union warships and transports entered the Yazoo River. The Union ships then worked their way upriver, easily suppressing Confederate shore fire as they went. On December 26, about 10 miles from the river mouth, three of the four Union divisions disembarked at Johnson’s Plantation. Sherman’s force was only about six miles north of Vicksburg itself, but before it could assault the Confederate positions on the Chickasaw Bluffs that formed the city’s northern defenses, Union soldiers would first have to cross a morass of marshy low ground, bayous, swamps, thick forest, and felled trees. Only a handful of approach roads or causeways were available, and the defenders had these well covered by artillery. Heavy rain made an already difficult situation far worse. During December 27–28, as Sherman’s men slowly worked their way toward the bluffs under covering fire from the Union ships in the river, the defenders doubled in number from 6,000 to 12,000 men. Meanwhile, Porter sent some of his gunboats upriver to feign an attack on Haynes Bluff, which however failed in its design of drawing off some of the defenders. The major fighting ashore occurred on December 29, with Porter’s gunboats again providing diversionary fire. Sherman struck the center of the Confederate line, advancing two brigades across open ground against the entrenchments. Union troops who managed to reach the Confederate rifle pits were driven back by heavy fire from the bluffs above. Faced with deteriorating weather and resolute Confederate resistance and learning at last of Grant’s decision, Sherman ordered a withdrawal. By the morning of January 2, 1863, all his men were again on board ship and on their way to the Mississippi and a base at Milliken’s Bend, Louisiana. Casualties in the Battle of the Chickasaw Bluffs testify to the superiority of the defense. Union losses, most

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of them on December 29, came to 175 killed, 930 wounded, and 743 prisoners; Confederate casualties numbered only 63 killed, 134 wounded, and 10 prisoners. Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Haynes’ Bluff, Mississippi, Union Demonstration at; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Porter, David Dixon; Riverine Warfare; Vicksburg Campaign; Yazoo River

References Arnold, James R. Grant Wins the War: Decision at Vicksburg. New York: Wiley, 1997. Ballard, Michael B. Vicksburg: The Campaign That Opened the Mississippi. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. Winshel, Terrance J. Vicksburg: Fall of the Confederate Gibraltar. Abilene, TX: McWhiney Foundation Press, 1999.

Cincinnati, USS One of the seven Cairo-class (City-class) ironclads built by James Buchanan Eads in the autumn of 1861. Constructed at Mound City, Illinois, and commissioned on January 15, 1862, the Cincinnati displaced 512 tons and was 175 feet in overall length with a beam of 51 feet, two inches and draft of 6 feet. The Cincinnati served as Flag Officer Andrew Hull Foote’s flagship during the Battle of Fort Henry (February 6, 1862) and had the distinction of being sunk twice by Confederate forces. In addition to the Fort Henry action, the Cincinnati was engaged at Fort Donelson (February 12–16, 1862) and Island Number 10 (March–April 1862). In the Battle of Plum Point Bend on the Mississippi River (May 10, 1862), the Cincinnati was rammed by three Confederate rams and settled in 12 feet of water. Refloated, it was returned to Mound City for repairs. On its return to service, the ironclad cooperated in the Yazoo River Expedition (November 21–December 11, 1862), the shelling of Drumgould’s Bluff (December 28, 1862), the capture of Fort Hindman, Arkansas (January 10–11, 1862), and the Steele’s Bayou excursion (March 14–26, 1863). The Cincinnati was sunk by Confederate batteries at Vicksburg, Mississippi, on May 27, 1863. Again refloated and repaired, it was assigned to the West Gulf Coast Blockading Squadron in February 1865 and accepted the surrenders of CSS Nashville and Morgan in the Tombigbee River on May 10, 1865. It was decommissioned on August 4, 1865, and sold on March 28, 1866. William E. Whyte III See also Amphibious Warfare; Cairo-Class River Ironclads; Eads, James Buchanan; Foote, Andrew Hull; Fort Donelson, Battle of; Fort Henry, Battle of; Fort Hindman, Battle of; Island Number 10, Battle of; Lenthall, John; Mississippi River; Mississippi River Defense Fleet;

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The City- or Cairo-class ironclad Cincinnati participated in most of the Union operations on Western waters in the Civil War, including the Battle of Fort Henry on February 6, 1862 and operations against Vicksburg a year later. (Library of Congress) Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Mound City Naval Station; Nashville, CSS, Ironclad; Plum Point Bend, Battle of; Porter, David Dixon; Riverine Warfare; Steele’s Bayou Expedition; Vicksburg Campaign; West Gulf Blockading Squadron; Yazoo Pass Expedition; Yazoo River

References Joiner, Gary D. Mr. Lincoln’s Brown Water Navy: The Mississippi Squadron. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007. Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. Smith, Myron J., Jr. The Timberclads in the Civil War: The Lexington, Conestoga and Tyler on the Western Waters. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

City-class Ships See Cairo-class River Ironclads

City Point, Virginia Port city situated at the confluence of the James and Appomattox rivers in Prince George County, Virginia. City Point was incorporated in 1823 as part of Hopewell.

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This quiet tobacco port with only a few homes and virtually no businesses was transformed in June 1864 into one of the busiest ports in the United States. It served as the terminus for the City Point Railroad that connected Petersburg, Virginia, and the James River. Union forces operating against Richmond from the south would need a major logistical base of operations. Operating under orders from Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant, Union troops under Major General Benjamin Butler seized City Point on May 5, 1864. Although the Army of the Potomac was subsequently well supplied from the large depots established at City Point, it also became the target of one of the Confederate Secret Service Corps’ most successful and audacious missions. Captain John S. Maxwell and R. K. Dillard of the Confederate Torpedo Corps succeeded in planting a time bomb (referred to as a horological torpedo) containing 12 pounds of powder aboard a munitions barge docked near the shore on August 9, 1864. An hour later, with the agents on their way back to Richmond, the bomb went off. The ensuing explosion and fire destroyed several large buildings, 180 feet of wharf, an estimated $2 million worth of munitions and supplies, and two transport ships. Fifty-eight men were killed and 40 others were wounded. Robert A. Lynn See also James River; James River Squadron, CSA; Navy, CSA; Torpedoes; Trent’s Reach, Battle of

References Bacon, Benjamin W. Sinews of War: How Technology, Industry, and Transportation Won the Civil War. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1997. Hattaway, Herman. Shades of Blue and Gray: An Introductory Military History of the Civil War. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1997.

Coal Torpedo A Confederate sabotage device designed in 1864 by Thomas Edgeworth Courtenay to explode steam-powered machinery boilers aboard ships. The coal torpedo was a hollow, fist-sized iron shell cast from real pieces of coal and filled with four ounces of gunpowder. The shells were manufactured in the artillery shell shop in Richmond, Virginia. Completed castings were loaded with gunpowder, sealed with a threaded plug, and coated with a mixture of pitch and beeswax, then with bits of coal. They were placed in coal depots for ships or smuggled on board vessels. When shoveled into the fire box by unsuspecting firemen, the coal torpedo exploded, rupturing the ship’s boilers and scattering burning coals around the fire room. In early 1864, Courtenay obtained the approval of Confederate president Jefferson Davis to enlist a “Secret Service Corps” of 25 men to distribute his devices among Union coal supplies, targeting vessels and steam-powered property chartered

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by Union forces. Courtenay held a volunteer’s commission as a captain on the staff of Major General Sterling Price, an old Missouri friend, but received no official salary for his service. Instead, he was to be reimbursed for up to 50 percent of the value of property destroyed. Because the coal torpedo was largely a stealth weapon, secreted in coal supplies until loaded aboard a ship or fuel supply, the actual amount of damage to property and vessels damaged or destroyed is uncertain. Major General Benjamin Butler’s headquarters ship, the Greyhound, was destroyed by a coal torpedo probably smuggled aboard by a group of “rough-looking men” discovered and put ashore shortly before an explosion and fire that burned the steamer to the waterline. Courtenay also claimed credit for serious damage done to the new U.S. gunboat Chenango as it departed New York Harbor. In December 1864, Confederate agents from Canada attempted to destroy the main U.S. arsenal at Springfield Armory, Massachusetts, by hiding a coal torpedo fitted with a time fuse under the main stairway. A watchman discovered it before the fuse was ignited, but the agents escaped. By war’s end, Courtenay had gone to England to escape charges of war crimes, directing activities by mail through partners still in the United States. Although Confederate-sanctioned use of the coal torpedo ceased at war’s end, it may have claimed one final victim. Robert Loudon, a known Confederate agent, claimed that he carried one on board the steamer Sultana as it was returning former Union prisoners to freedom, causing the boiler explosion and fire that took more than 1,700 lives on April 27, 1865. Following the war, versions of the coal torpedo were used to sink ships for insurance fraud. The idea gained military favor again in World War II as German, Japanese, and American sabotage versions were made using plastic explosives, bringing the coal torpedo full circle. Joseph Thatcher See also Navy, CSA; Spar Torpedo; Sultana Disaster; Torpedoes

References Luraghi, Raimondo. A History of the Confederate Navy. Translated by Paolo D. Coletta. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1996. Perry, Milton F. Infernal Machines: The Story of Confederate Submarine and Mine Warfare. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1965. Thatcher, Joseph M. “Captain Courtenay’s Shells: The Coal Torpedo in the Civil War” [tentative title]. Alexandria, VA: O’Donnell, in press.

Coast Survey, U.S. Scientific organization, the oldest in the United States, established in 1807 by Congress to provide nautical charts of the U.S. coastline. Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler,

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a renowned Swedish scientist and lawyer, directed the efforts of the U.S. Coast Survey until his death in 1843. That year, Professor Alexander Dallas Bache took over and expanded the responsibilities of the service. Throughout the antebellum years, the Coast Survey conducted explorations, studied ocean tides and depths, and compiled a definitive collection of maritime maps as well as collecting valuable meteorological and magnetic data. Upon the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, Coast Survey data became indispensable to U.S. Navy operations. The navy, responsible for the blockade of more than 3,000 miles of Confederate coastline, needed the agency’s detailed coastal charts and data. Bache was indirectly responsible for the formation in June 1861 of what became known as the Blockade Board, and as a member of that board he helped formulate U.S. naval doctrine for an effective Confederate blockade. He also assured cooperation between the navy and the U.S. Coast Survey. William E. Whyte III See also Bache, Alexander Dallas; Blockade Board; Blockade of the Confederacy; Davis, Charles Henry; Du Pont, Samuel Francis; East Gulf Blockading Squadron; Fox, Gustavus Vasa; Gulf Blockading Squadron; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Revenue Cutter Service, U.S.; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Stone Fleets; Welles, Gideon; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Slotten, Hugh R. Patronage, Practice, and the Culture of American Science: Alexander Dallas Bache and the U.S. Coast Survey. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Weddle, Kevin J. “The Blockade Board of 1861 and Union Naval Strategy.” Civil War History 48 (2002): 123–142.

Collins, Napoleon Birth Date: March 4, 1814 Death Date: August 9, 1875 U.S. Navy officer. Napoleon Collins was born in Pennsylvania on March 4, 1814. Collins received a midshipman’s warrant on January 2, 1834. He was promoted to passed midshipman on July 16, 1846, and to master on August 15, 1846. Collins was promoted to lieutenant on November 6, 1846, and saw service in the MexicanAmerican War in the sloop Decatur. Assigned to the Atlantic Blockading Squadron at the start of the Civil War, Collins participated in the Union capture of Port Royal, South Carolina, on November 7, 1861. Promoted to commander on July 16, 1862, Collins assumed command of the side-wheeler double-ender gunboat Octorara. Stationed in the West Indies, he took 12 prizes off the Bahamas from November 1862 to June 1863. His capture

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of the British schooner Mont Blanc caused a minor diplomatic flap, although a U.S. prize court upheld his action, claiming that he had “probable cause” to detain the ship. Despite some censure of his action, the controversial Collins enjoyed the support of Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, who rewarded him with command of the screw sloop Wachusett and ordered him off Brazil to search for Confederate commerce raiders. In early October, Collins happened on CSS Florida, undergoing repairs at Bahia, Brazil. International law prohibited Collins from engaging the Confederate ship in a neutral harbor, but the Florida was much faster than his own vessel and Collins feared it would escape. When he put the matter to his officers, they voted in favor of an attempt to destroy the ship in the harbor. Early on the morning of October 7, 1863, the Wachusett steamed toward the Florida and rammed it. The blow damaged but did not sink the raider. The Wachusett then opened fire. Most of the Florida’s crew was then ashore and none of its guns were loaded. Lieutenant Thomas K. Porter, in temporary command, was forced to surrender his ship. The Wachusett then towed the Florida to sea, and a prize crew sailed it to the United States. This time Collins faced a court of inquiry into his actions. Facing a strong protest from the Brazilian government, Washington agreed to return the Florida, then at anchor off Newport News, Virginia, to Brazil. Before this could be accomplished, however, the Florida was accidentally rammed by the army transport Alliance and sprang a leak. Nine days later on November 28, 1864, its pumps having mysteriously stopped working, the Florida sank at anchor. Although U.S. authorities privately approved of his actions in engaging the Florida, Collins was found guilty of a violation of international law and sentenced to be dismissed from the navy. Welles refused to accept this ruling and instead secured Collins’s promotion to captain on July 25, 1866. Collins again faced charges when his ship, the screw sloop Sacramento, went aground at the mouth of the Godavari River in India on June 19, 1867, and became a total loss. Suspended until March 1869, Collins was then assigned as a lighthouse inspector. He was promoted to commodore on January 19, 1871, and to rear admiral on August 9, 1874, when he assumed command of the South Pacific Squadron. Collins died at Callao, Peru, on August 9, 1875. Spencer C. Tucker See also Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Florida, CSS; Port Royal Sound, Battle of; Welles, Gideon

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Owsley, Frank L., Jr. The C.S.S. Florida: Her Building and Operations. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1965.

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Colt, Samuel Birth Date: July 19, 1814 Death Date: January 10, 1862 Inventor and industrialist. Samuel Colt was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on July 19, 1814. Indentured to a farm in Glastonbury at age 11, Colt attended school there and became fascinated by the Compendium of Knowledge, a scientific encyclopedia. This led to his decision to become an inventor and produce a firearm that could shoot multiple times without reloading. In 1829, Colt began working in his father’s textile mill in Ware, Massachusetts. He then built a galvanic cell and used it to explode a charge in Lake Ware. In 1832, Colt’s father sent him to sea with the plan that he would become a sailor. On his first voyage, Colt built a model revolver, said to have been inspired by the movement of the ship’s wheel and the clutch mechanism that held it. Returning home in 1832, Colt again worked for his father, who financed the manufacture of his first two pistols. Both were failures, because they had been poorly made of inferior materials. That same year, Colt applied for a patent on his revolver. Colt then traveled and made a modest living performing nitrous oxide (laughing gas) demonstrations. In 1835 he traveled to Britain and secured a patent for his revolver. Returning to the United States, he secured a patent for his revolving gun in 1836. In 1836, Colt formed the Patent Army Manufacturing Company in Patterson, New Jersey. Its first product was a small, five-shot .28-caliber revolver, but its most famous early design was the 1838 Colt Holster Model Paterson Revolver No. 5. Better known as the Texas Paterson, it was .36 caliber, had five cylinders, and came in 4- to 12-inch barrel lengths. This was the first revolving cylinder pistol in general use. Each chamber was separately loaded from the muzzle end and had its own nipple for the copper percussion cap. The drum chamber moved each time the hammer was cocked. The Mexican-American War brought an order for 1,000 of his revolvers, establishing his business. The California gold rush and western expansion greatly assisted the business, and his patent gave him a virtual monopoly. Colt revolvers were adopted by both the army and navy and saw wide service in the Mexican-American War, the U.S. Civil War, and fighting with Native Americans in the West. Colt did not claim to have invented the revolver, which is attributed to Elisha Collier of Boston, but he greatly improved and popularized it. His was the first truly practical revolver and repeating firearm. Colt also greatly accelerated the employment of interchangeable parts in manufactured goods. He also experimented with underwater mines, and tensions with Great Britain led Congress to appropriate funds for his project at the end of 1841. The next year, Colt destroyed a small ship with a mine in a demonstration for President John Tyler. He also developed an underwater telegraph cable to capitalize on Samuel Morse’s invention of the

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telegraph. In 1855 he completed construction of a new plant at Hartford, at the time the largest arms manufacturing facility in the world. Colt was apparently a model employer, building factory housing for his workers and mandating a 10-hour work day and a 1-hour lunch break. He also established a club for his employees where they could relax and read newspapers. Upon the outbreak of the Civil War, Colt accepted a commission as a colonel from the state of Connecticut in May 1861 in the 1st Regiment Colts Revolving Rifles of Connecticut, armed with his revolving rifle. The unit never was established, however, and Colt was discharged the next month. Colt died in Hartford on January 10, 1862. At the time of his death, his estate was estimated at $15 million. Colt’s resolute wife, Elizabeth, carried on the firm after his death. Probably the most famous early revolver in U.S. history was the Colt .45 Peacemaker. Designed for the U.S. Army trials of 1873 and still in production, it was widely used in the American West in fighting against the American Indians. The cavalry version had a 7.5-inch barrel and was officially known as the Single Action Army Revolver, Model 1873 Six-Shot Caliber .45 Colt. Spencer C. Tucker See also Colt Navy Revolver

References Grant, Ellsworth S. The Colt Legacy. Providence, RI: Mowbray, 1982. Hosley, William. Colt: The Making of an American Legend. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1996. Kelner, William L. “On Samuel Colt and the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company, New Jersey.” Unpublished master’s thesis, Fairleigh Dickinson University, 1969. Kinard, Jeff. Pistols: An Illustrated History of Their Impact. Santa Barbara, CA: ABCCLIO, 2003. Myatt, F. Illustrated Encyclopedia of Pistols and Revolvers. London: Salamander Books, 1980. Taylorson, A. The Revolver. 3 vols. London: Arms and Armour, 1966–1970.

Colt Navy Revolver Samuel Colt’s revolvers were the most widely carried handguns of the Civil War. Two types of Colt revolvers saw service in the Civil War: the M1851 .36-caliber Navy Revolver, or Old Model Belt Pistol, and the M1860 .44-caliber Army Revolver. The U.S. government purchased 17,010 Navy Revolvers and 129,730 Colt Army Revolvers from 1861 to 1866. The M1851 Colt Navy model was also adopted by the Confederate States Ordnance Department. Introduced in 1850, the M1851 was in use through 1873. It had a drum chamber, and a loading mechanism was incorporated into the design. Each of the six chambers was separately loaded from the muzzle end and had its own nipple for

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the copper percussion cap. The drum chamber moved each time the hammer was cocked. By the end of 1862, Colt’s Hartford, Connecticut, factory was producing 1,000 weapons a week, an output that was doubled by early 1863. The gun manufacturer charged the U.S. government $25 a pistol, but competition from Remington forced the price down to $14.50 by June 1862. Robert A. Lynn See also Colt, Samuel; Naval Ordnance

References Coggins, Jack. Arms and Equipment of the Civil War. New York: Doubleday, 1962. Edwards, William B. Civil War Guns. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole, 1962.

Columbus Navy Yard Newly constructed Confederate navy yard located at Columbus, along the Chattahoochee River, in west-central Georgia. The yard was well connected by railroad to the strategic areas of the Confederacy. With the losses of Southern ports such as Port Royal, South Carolina, in November 1861 and New Orleans, Louisiana, in April 1862, the Confederate States of America decided to establish naval facilities in the interior where there was less threat from the U.S. Navy. Columbus had a population of about 10,000 people and several industrial plants. Used first for producing boat howitzers, the navy yard established there then engaged in the production of engines and boilers. Chief Engineer James H. Warner took command of the yard in September 1862. Over time, he converted it into the largest manufacturer of naval machinery within the Confederacy. Engines and boilers produced there drove at least half of the steam-powered vessels of the Confederate Navy, including the gunboat Chattahoochee and ironclads Muscogee and Jackson. Some 13,500 Union cavalry under Brigadier General James H. Wilson attacked the naval facility on April 16, 1865, one week after General Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, Virginia. They burned the city’s cotton warehouses, the Muscogee, and all the war-related industries. Robert A. Lynn See also Charlotte Navy Yard; Ironclads, Confederate; Navy, CSA; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; Port Royal Sound, Battle of; Scofield and Markham Gate City Iron Works; Selma Naval Gun Foundry; Shelby Iron Company; Tredegar Iron Works

References Still, William N., Jr. Iron Afloat: The Story of the Confederate Armorclads. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1985.

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Still, William N., Jr., ed. The Confederate Navy: The Ships, Men and Organization, 1861–65. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997. Turner, Maxine. Navy Gray: Engineering the Confederate Navy on the Chattahoochee and Apalachicola Rivers. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1999.

Commerce Raiding, Confederate A major Confederate goal at sea was the destruction of Union commerce. Secretary of the Navy Stephen R. Mallory and other Southern leaders hoped that a guerre de course (war against commerce) would create serious economic stress in the North, leading business interests there to press for a negotiated end to the war that would bring Southern independence. Mallory had no confidence in privateers. What he wanted were regular, commissioned Confederate Navy ships operating in accordance with established international law. Although only a handful of these ships actually operated during the war, they were nonetheless quite successful. Under international law, enemy merchant ships at sea in war were subject to capture and confiscation. In 1861 the United States was a major maritime power, and with a relatively small navy, its commerce was vulnerable to raiders. Nonetheless, the Confederates faced daunting challenges. The Union blockade rendered it hard to bring prizes into a Confederate port. Finding secure bases from which the commerce raiders could operate was another problem. Confederate raider captains also found themselves handicapped by foreign governments’ neutrality proclamations, which meant that there were very few places to which captured vessels might be sailed and sold. As a result, most raider captains burned the ships they took, although occasionally Union ships would also be let go on bond simply to carry passengers or because their cargo belonged to a neutral nation. Bonding meant that the captured ship’s captain signed a paper guaranteeing to pay a set sum to the Confederate government at the end of the war, with the amount decided in condemnation procedures. The most difficult matter to resolve was securing the raiders themselves. Such ships would have to be roomy and fast, and able to operate under both sail and steam. The Confederacy lacked modern shipbuilding facilities, and its ports were under blockade. The logical source for securing the ships was Great Britain, the world’s most advanced and largest shipbuilder. Britain was appealing for another reason: its leadership was sympathetic to the South. In May 1861 Mallory dispatched two agents to Europe. He ordered serving naval officer Lieutenant James H. North to purchase or contract for the construction of ironclad warships suitable for breaking the blockade, while former U.S. Navy officer James D. Bulloch (later a commander in the Confederate Navy) was charged with procuring ships, guns, and ammunition.

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A 19th-century artwork showing the Confederate commerce raider Florida overhauling and capturing the merchant ship Jacob Bell in the West Indies, on February 12, 1863. (Naval History and Heritage Command)

Pending foreign construction, Mallory sought to outfit some ships at home. The first Confederate commerce raider to get to sea was in fact the converted steamer Habana at New Orleans. Renamed the Sumter and captained by Commander Raphael Semmes, it got to sea on June 30, 1861. Its first prize was the merchant bark Golden Rocket, taken on July 3. In all Semmes took 17 prizes in only six months. In poor repair and blockaded there by a Union warship, the Sumter was finally sold at Gibraltar in December 1862. The cost to the Confederate government of running the ship amounted to only $28,000, a figure less than the least valuable of its prizes. Bulloch, meanwhile, achieved considerable success in England. He and other Confederate agents ultimately contracted for 18 vessels abroad, the most successful of which were the Alabama, Florida, Shenandoah, Chickamauga, Georgia, Rappahannock, and Tallahassee. The other 11 ships became blockade-runners, were sequestered by the British and French governments, or were not completed by the end of the war. Advised by eminent Liverpool lawyer F. S. Hull, Bulloch was able to skirt the British Foreign Enlistment Act of 1819. It prohibited British citizens from equipping, furnishing, fitting out, or arming any vessel intended for service by foreign belligerent navies. Hill told Bulloch that construction of such a ship was not illegal in itself, whatever the intent, and that the offense lay only in the equipping of them as warships. Bulloch therefore saw to it that none of his cruisers went to sea with ordnance, small arms, or warlike stores of any kind. He secured these vessels and then shipped them to a rendezvous point in international waters, where they were then transferred to the raider.

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The Florida was the first Confederate raider built in England. Under command of Lieutenant John N. Maffitt, it made celebrated runs past the ships of a Union blockading squadron in and out of Mobile Bay. Before its capture in circumstances questionable under international law, it had taken 33 Union merchant ships and caused an estimated $4,051,000 in damages. Expenses of the raider’s construction and cruises probably amounted to only $400,000. The most famous Confederate raider was undoubtedly the Alabama, also built in England. Captained by Semmes, it sailed in all some 75,000 miles, taking 64 prizes. It also sank a Union warship, the Hatteras. Semmes estimated that in the Sumter and Alabama he had burned $4,613,914 worth of Union shipping and cargoes and bonded others worth $562,250. Another estimate places the total Union loss at nearly $6 million. Denied access to a French navy dockyard at Cherbourg, Semmes took the Alabama to sea, where it was sunk in battle with the U.S. Navy screw sloop Kearsarge on June 19, 1864. The Shenandoah was another famous Confederate raider. A converted steamer designed as a troop transport and captained by Lieutenant Commander James I. Waddell, it devastated the New England whaling fleet in the Bering Sea. Finally convinced that the war was over, Waddell unshipped his guns and sailed the ship to London. The Shenandoah was the only Confederate warship to circumnavigate the globe. It took 38 Union vessels, of which Waddell burned 32. The remainder he had sent under cartel to San Francisco. Damage to Union shipping was estimated at some $1,360,000. In all, during the Civil War Confederate commerce raiders took 257 U.S. merchant ships. This amounts to only about 5 percent of the total. They thus barely disrupted U.S. trade. As a consequence and because demands were so pressing elsewhere, U.S. secretary of the navy Gideon Welles staunchly resisted demands that he release more ships from blockade duty to hunt raiders down, thus largely thwarting one of Mallory’s goals. Nonetheless, U.S. warships deployed by the U.S. Navy to hunt down the raiders cost the government some $3,325,000. In 14 months, beginning in January 1863, a total of 77 Union warships and 23 chartered vessels were employed in this effort. The raiders did drive up insurance rates substantially, but their major effect, and it was lasting, was to force a large number of U.S. vessels into permanent foreign registry. More than half the total U.S. merchant fleet was thus permanently lost to the flag during the Civil War. Although the cruisers burned or sank 110,000 tons of shipping, another 800,000 tons were sold to foreign owners (700 ships to British firms alone), and these tended to be the best ships. Legal impediments prevented the ships from returning. After the war the matter of the British government having allowed the fitting out of the Confederate cruisers became a major thorn in Anglo-American relations. U.S. government leaders believed that London’s policies had heartened the South and prolonged the war. Some outspoken U.S. political leaders proposed taking

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British Western Hemisphere possessions, including Canada, in compensation. In what came to be known as the “Alabama Claims,” an international tribunal in Geneva awarded damages of $15,500,500 to the U.S. government in September 1872. This settlement came to be regarded as an important step in the peaceful settlement of international disputes and a victory for the world rule of law. Spencer C. Tucker See also Adams, Charles Francis, Sr.; Alabama, CSS; Alabama Claims; Alabama vs. Hatteras; Alabama vs. Kearsarge; Anaconda Strategy; Blockade of the Confederacy; Blockade-Runners; Bulloch, James Dunwody; Chickamauga, CSS; Collins, Napoleon; Florida, CSS; Georgia, CSS, Commerce Raider; Laird Rams; Letters of Marque and Reprisal; Maffitt, John Newland; Mallory, Stephen Russell; Mobile Bay; Navy, CSA; Privateers; Rappahannock, CSS; Semmes, Raphael; Shenandoah, CSS; Tallahassee, CSS; Waddell, James Iredell; Welles, Gideon

References Bulloch, James Dunwody. The Secret Service of the Confederate States in Europe, or How the Confederate Cruisers Were Equipped. New York: Modern Library, 2001. Dalzell, George W. The Flight from the Flag: The Continuing Effect of the Civil War upon the American Carrying Trade. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1940. Hearn, Chester G. Gray Raiders of the Sea: How Eight Confederate Warships Destroyed the Union’s High Seas Commerce. Camden, ME: International Marine Publishing, 1992. Horn, Stanley F. Gallant Rebel: The Fabulous Cruise of the C.S.S. Shenandoah. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1947. Morgan, Murray. Dixie Raider: The Saga of the C.S.S. Shenandoah. New York: Dutton, 1948. Owsley, Frank L., Jr. The C.S.S. Florida: Her Building and Operations. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1965. Tucker, Spencer C. Raphael Semmes and the Alabama. Abilene, TX: McWhiney Foundation Press, 1996.

Conestoga, USS One of the original three timberclad gunboats purchased by U.S. Navy commander John Rodgers for service with the Western Gunboat Flotilla. The Conestoga, originally a towboat, was reinforced by five-inch oak planking on its hull and superstructure to provide protection from at least small-arms fire—hence the appellation of “timberclad.” Acquired by the U.S. Army on June 3, 1861, for $16,200 and modified at Brownsville, Pennsylvania, the 572-ton Conestoga was capable of 10.5 knots and was the fastest of the timberclads. Its initial armament was four 32-pounders. The Conestoga engaged the Confederate steamer Jackson off Lucas Bend, Missouri, on September 10, 1861; that was followed by an engagement at Eddyville, Kentucky, on October 27, 1861. The Conestoga and its sister ship Tyler were

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charged with clearing torpedoes in the Tennessee River prior to Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote’s attack on Fort Henry (February 6, 1862). Immediately following the surrender of Fort Henry, the Conestoga, along with the timberclads Tyler and Lexington, sailed up the Tennessee River. This four-day expedition reached as far as Muscle Shoals, Alabama. The Conestoga then participated in the Battle of Fort Donelson (February 12–16, 1862), the bombardment of St. Charles, Arkansas (June 17, 1862), the burning of Palmyra, Tennessee (April 3, 1863), and the expedition to Trinity, Louisiana (July 10, 1863). Ordered to join Rear Admiral David D. Porter’s expedition up the Red River, the Conestoga was sunk in a collision with the General Price below Grand Gulf on the Mississippi River on March 8, 1864. William E. Whyte III See also Foote, Andrew Hull; Fort Donelson, Battle of; Fort Henry, Battle of; Lexington, USS; Mississippi River; Mississippi River Defense Fleet; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Phelps, Seth Ledyard; Phelps’s Raid; Porter, David Dixon; Red River Campaign; Rodgers, John; Tennessee River; Timberclads; Tyler, USS

References Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. Smith, Myron J., Jr. The Timberclads in the Civil War: The Lexington, Conestoga and Tyler on the Western Waters. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008. Tucker, Spencer C. Andrew Foote: Civil War Admiral on Western Waters. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000.

Confederate Defense Fleet See Mississippi River Defense Fleet

Cooke, James Wallace Birth Date: August 13, 1812 Death Date: June 21, 1869 Confederate Navy officer. James Wallace Cooke was born on August 13, 1812, in Beaufort, North Carolina. He was raised by his uncle, who secured a warrant for him as a midshipman in the U.S. Navy on April 1, 1828. He was promoted to passed midshipman on June 14, 1834, and commissioned lieutenant on February 25, 1841. On May 2, 1861, Cooke, then the most senior lieutenant in the U.S. Navy, resigned his commission to cast his lot with the Confederacy. Cooke received a commission as a lieutenant in the Confederate Navy on June 11, 1861. Serving initially at the batteries at Aquia Creek, Virginia, he took command of the Ellis, a former lightship converted into an ironclad floating battery, on

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October 30. Under Cooke’s command, the Ellis was engaged in both the Battle of Roanoke Island (February 7–8, 1862) and the Battle of Elizabeth City (February 10, 1862). In the Battle of Elizabeth City, the Ellis was boarded, and Cooke was shot, bayoneted, and taken prisoner. Paroled on February 12, 1862, he returned home to recover. After his prisoner exchange in August, he was promoted to commander, with date of rank of May 17, 1862. In early 1863 Cooke returned to North Carolina to supervise the construction of ironclads on the Neuse, Tar, and Roanoke rivers. As commander of the ironclad Albemarle on the Roanoke River, he participated in the battles of both Plymouth (April 17–20, 1864) and Albemarle Sound (May 5, 1864). Because of his service during both battles, Cooke was promoted to captain on June 10, 1864, but he soon was relieved of duty because of deteriorating health. In September he returned to active duty as the senior naval officer of the inland waters of North Carolina. At the close of the war, Cooke evacuated the navy yard at Halifax, North Carolina, and was paroled in Raleigh, North Carolina, on May 12, 1865. Cooke died in Portsmouth, Virginia, on June 21, 1869. Andrew Duppstadt See also Albemarle, CSS; Albemarle, CSS, Destruction of; Albemarle Sound; Albemarle Sound, Battle of; Cushing, William Barker; Elizabeth City, Battle of; Floating Battery; Ironclads, Confederate; Roanoke Island, North Carolina, Union Capture of

References Butler, Lindley S. Pirates, Privateers, and Rebel Raiders of the Carolina Coast. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000. Campbell, R. Thomas. Storm over Carolina: The Confederate Navy’s Struggle for Eastern North Carolina. Nashville: Cumberland House, 2005. Elliott, Robert G. Ironclads on the Roanoke: Gilbert Elliott’s Albemarle. Shippensburg, PA: White Mane, 1999. Register of Officers of the Confederate States Navy, 1861–1865: As Compiled and Revised by the Office of Naval Records and Library, United States Navy Department, 1931, from All Available Data. With a new introduction by John M. Carroll. Mattituck, NY: J. M. Carroll, 1981. [Originally published by the Naval Record and Library, U.S. Navy Department, in 1898 and revised in 1931.]

Cottonclads The Confederate River Defense Fleet in the Mississippi River numbered more than a dozen lightly armed and poorly armored gunboats. Known as cottonclads and constructed with double pine bulkheads bolted together and stuffed with compressed cotton, they mounted only one or two guns each but were somewhat faster and more agile than their Union counterparts. A number had reinforced bows of oak and iron, enabling them to act as rams.

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The Confederates also employed cottonclads in the Battle of Galveston on January 1, 1863. These makeshift warships carried cotton bales to provide some protection against small-arms fire. The cottonclads included the Bayou City (125 feet in length, 65 feet in beam, and 5 feet in depth of hull), mounting one 32-pounder; and the Neptune (dimensions unknown), armed with two 24-pounder boat howitzers. The two cottonclads also carried sizable contingents of “horse marines,” members of the 5th and 7th Texas Cavalry regiments, armed mostly with Enfield rifles and some double-barreled shotguns. Spencer C. Tucker See also Galveston, Battle of; Mississippi River Defense Fleet; Navy, CSA; Plum Point Bend, Battle of

References Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. Slagle, Jay. Ironclad Captain: Seth Ledyard Phelps and the U.S. Navy, 1841–1864. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1996. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Coxetter, Louis Mitchell Birth Date: December 10, 1818 Death Date: July 10, 1873 Confederate privateer and blockade-runner captain. Louis Mitchell Coxetter was born in Nova Scotia, Canada, on December 10, 1818. Immigrating to the United States, he settled in Charleston, South Carolina, and entered the merchant service in ships traveling between that city and St. Augustine, Florida. Following U.S. president Abraham Lincoln’s proclamation of a blockade of the Southern coasts, Confederate president Jefferson Davis called for privateers to attack Union shipping. The Confederate Congress then passed, and Davis signed into law on May 6, a bill recognizing a state of war with the United States and establishing regulations for “letters of marque, prizes, and prize goods.” Robert Hunter, owner of the brig Putnam (the former slaver Echo that had been seized by the U.S. Navy and sold at auction), signed up shareholders and outfitted the Putnam at Charleston as a privateer. Coxetter took command of the ship, with its crew of 70 volunteers. Renamed the Jefferson Davis and armed with five guns, it was officially commissioned on June 18. The Jefferson Davis put to sea on June 28, and in the span of only seven weeks caused considerable consternation in the North when it took nine Northern merchantmen off New England and Puerto Rico. Two were recaptured (one, the

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schooner S. J. Waring, was captured by the ship’s cook, who killed the three leaders of the prize crew with an ax some 100 miles off Charleston; the ship was then sailed to New York), two were burned (one to prevent its recapture), and the others were released to put captured crewmen ashore. Only two of the prizes managed to make it through the Union blockade to Savannah, but both were reportedly sold for large sums. The Jefferson Davis was itself lost when it was wrecked on the bar while trying to enter St. Augustine on August 18, 1861. After a failed attempt to organize a new privateering venture, Coxetter then traveled to England, where he took command at Liverpool of the steam blockade-Â� runner Herald for the British firm of Fraser, Trenholm and Company, and John Fraser and Company of Charleston. One of the most successful blockade-runner captains, Coxetter commanded a huge salary, and captained first the Herald and then the General Beauregard. Coxetter’s final service to the Confederacy was an attempt at the end of the war to mine the Savannah River to prevent Union warships from reaching that port. With the end of the war, Coxetter resumed his merchant service career. He died in Charleston on July 10, 1873. Spencer C. Tucker See also Blockade of the Confederacy; Blockade-Runners; Charleston, South Carolina; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Davis, Jefferson Finis; Letters of Marque and Reprisal; Lincoln, Abraham; Privateers; Savannah River; Torpedoes

References McNeil, Jim. Masters of the Shoals: Tales of the Cape Fear Pilots Who Ran the Union Blockade. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2003. Robinson, William Morrison, Jr. The Confederate Privateers. 1928; reprint, Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1980. U.S. Navy Department, Naval History Division. Civil War Naval Chronology, 1861– 1865. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971. Wise, Stephen R. Lifeline of the Confederacy: Blockade Running during the Civil War. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988.

Craven, Thomas Tingey Birth Date: December 20, 1808 Death Date: August 23, 1887 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Washington, D.C., on December 20, 1808, Thomas Tingey Craven was the brother of U.S. Navy commander Tunis Augustus Macdonough Craven, commander of the ironclad Tecumseh, who was killed when his ship went down in the Battle of Mobile Bay. Appointed a midshipman on May 1, 1822, Craven served in the frigate United States in the Pacific Squadron during 1823–1828. He was promoted to passed

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midshipman on May 24, 1828. In 1828 he was in the sloop Erie as part of the antipiracy activities of the West Indies Squadron. Promoted to lieutenant on May 27, 1830, he served three years in the schooner Boxer. In 1838 he served as first lieutenant in the flagship sloop Vincennes in the Antarctic exploring expedition under Lieutenant Charles Wilkes. In 1843–1844 he saw service in the African squadron involved in the suppression of the slave trade, spending part of that time as commander of the sloop Porpoise. He then served in the ship of the line Ohio in the Pacific Squadron, and in the Mediterranean in the ship of the line Independence. During 1850–1853 Craven was commandant of midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, where he initiated the practice cruise. Promoted to commander on December 16, 1852, he remained at the academy until 1855. He then commanded the frigate Congress in the Mediterranean Squadron for several years before returning to the Naval Academy as commandant until October 1860. At the beginning of 1861, Craven had served in the navy for 38 years: 17 years of sea service, 9 years of shore assignments, and 11 years awaiting orders in a navy that had too many officers. Craven was promoted to captain on June 7, 1861, and assumed command of the Potomac Flotilla. That autumn, he assumed command of the screw sloop Brooklyn, and took part in Flag Officer David G. Farragut’s push up the Mississippi River and the capture of New Orleans. On Farragut’s order, Craven then took several ships up the river, past Baton Rouge. When two U.S. transports in the Mississippi River were fired on from that place, Craven ordered the short bombardment of Grand Gulf, Mississippi, on May 26, 1862. Promoted to commodore on July 16, 1862, Craven commanded the screw frigate Niagara in the European squadron. In August 1864 he captured the former Confederate commerce raider Georgia off the coast of Portugal. In March 1865 Craven sought without success to blockade the Confederate ironclad Stonewall at El Ferrol, Spain, and subsequently refused a challenge from its captain to engage the Niagara and sloop Sacramento, allowing the Stonewall to get to sea. Craven had thought the Confederate warship too powerful. This led to a court-martial in December 1865, during which Craven was found guilty of failing to do his utmost to destroy the Stonewall. The court sentenced him to two years’ suspension from duty. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, although he thought Craven had been too cautious, believed the verdict was inconsistent and overturned it a year later. Craven was promoted to rear admiral on October 10, 1866, and commanded the navy yard at Mare Island, California, until August 1868, when he assumed command of the Pacific Squadron. He retired from the navy on December 30, 1869. Craven died at the Boston Navy Yard on August 23, 1887. Spencer C. Tucker See also Farragut, David Glasgow; Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s Run Past; Georgia, CSS, Commerce Raider; Grand Gulf, Mississippi, Union Shelling of; Mare Island Navy Yard; Mississippi River; Mobile Bay, Battle of; Naval Academy, United States; New

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References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Navy Historical Division, Navy Department. Civil War Naval Chronology, 1861–1865. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971. Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Craven, Tunis Augustus Macdonough Birth Date: January 11, 1813 Death Date: August 5, 1864 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on January 11, 1813, Tunis Augustus Macdonough Craven was the brother of U.S. Navy officer Thomas Tingey Craven. Tunis Craven, known as “Mac,” entered the navy as a midshipman on February 2, 1829. He was promoted to passed midshipman on July 3, 1835. In 1837, on his own request, he was attached to the Coast Survey. Craven was promoted to lieutenant on September 8, 1841, and served in the sloop Falmouth until 1843, when he transferred to the ship of the line North Carolina. In 1846 Craven was assigned to the sloop Dale in the Pacific Squadron and took part in the conquest of California during the Mexican-American War (1846–1848). He then returned to the Coast Survey. In 1857 he commanded the Atrato expedition, which surveyed a route for a possible ship canal through the Isthmus of Darien by way of the Atrato and Truando rivers. He then commanded the acquired combatant Mohawk off the coast of Cuba in the effort to suppress the slave trade, capturing two slaver ships. Promoted to commander on April 24, 1861, near the beginning of the Civil War, Craven commanded the acquired warship Crusader in blockade duties off Florida, and was credited with helping to preserve the fortress of Key West for the Union. As commander of the screw frigate Tuscarora during 1861–1863, he served in European waters attempting to locate and destroy Confederate commerce raiders, in the course of which he blockaded the Sumter at Gibraltar and forced its sale to British interests. Returning to the United States, Craven assumed command of the ironclad monitor Tecumseh, and in April 1864 he joined Rear Admiral Samuel P. Lee’s James River Squadron. That August he transferred to the West Gulf Coast Squadron under Rear Admiral David G. Farragut for the effort to force Mobile Bay, in which he commanded the ironclad monitor Tecumseh.

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On August 5, 1864, in the Battle of Mobile Bay, the Tecumseh led the Union column and was well out in front of the other ships. Craven was unfamiliar with the bay and its shoals, but pilot John Collins knew the waters well. At 6:47 a.m. the Tecumseh fired the first shots of the battle, against Fort Morgan. Peering through the narrow slits of the Tecumseh’s pilot house, Craven could see the Confederate ironclad Tennessee some 200 yards ahead, making for the Union battle line. The monitors had the responsibility of engaging the Tennessee and keeping it away from the Union wooden ships, and the wooden screw sloop Brooklyn had already overtaken two of the monitors and was abreast of another. The wooden screw sloops Hartford and Richmond were also closing fast. This situation prompted Craven to order the Tecumseh to skirt inside the line of Confederate torpedoes (mines) and make directly for the Tennessee to engage it at once. The Tecumseh forged ahead, and there was a terrific roar as the monitor struck a mine and rolled immediately to port, its bow down and stern lifted up, with the ship’s propeller turning madly in the air. The Tecumseh sank in less than half a minute. Craven and Collins both left the pilothouse, meeting at the foot of the ladder to the escape hatch on the turret and struggling in water already up to their chests. “After you, pilot,” Craven said. They were the last words Craven was heard to utter, for Collins was the 21st and last man free of the ship. Craven and 92 others perished. Spencer C. Tucker See also Brooklyn, USS; Buchanan, Franklin; Coast Survey, U.S.; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Craven, Thomas Tingey; Farragut, David Glasgow; Fort Morgan, Alabama; Ironclads, Union; James River Squadron, CSA; Lee, Samuel Phillips; Mobile Bay; Mobile Bay, Battle of; Sumter, CSS; Tecumseh, USS; Tennessee, CSS; Torpedoes; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Friend, Jack. West Wind, Flood Tide: The Battle of Mobile Bay. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2004. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Cumberland River Tributary of the Ohio River. The Cumberland River is 688 miles in length, and the basin area of the river is approximately 18,000 square miles. The river begins in far southeastern Kentucky (modern-day Harlan County), and flows generally west through southeastern Kentucky and northern Tennessee before curving northwest into western Kentucky, where it joins the Ohio River near the southern tip of Illinois and Indiana (near modern-day Smithland, Kentucky). Most of the river is navigable below the Cumberland Falls, and 20th-century dams and locks have

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increased its navigability. A series of large reservoirs within the Cumberland Valley have been created by numerous dams. The Cumberland River was used extensively by traders and settlers moving west in the early 19th century, and by the mid-19th century riverboats used the waterway extensively to link up with both the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. The Shawnee frequented the area until the early decades of the 19th century. The Cumberland saw fighting during the Civil War, most notably during the Battle of Fort Donelson (February 12–16, 1862); the fort was situated on the river. The Union victories at Fort Donelson and nearby Fort Henry (February 6, 1862) were the first significant Union triumphs of the war. The Union’s Army of the Cumberland was also named for the river. Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr. See also Fort Donelson, Battle of; Fort Henry, Battle of; Mississippi River; Ohio River; Riverine Warfare

References Benke, Arthur, and Colbert Cushing. Rivers of North America. Burlington, MA: Elsevier Academic, 2005. Cooling, B. Franklin. Forts Henry and Donelson: The Key to the Confederate Heartland. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1987.

Cushing, William Barker Birth Date: November 4, 1842 Death Date: December 17, 1874 U.S. Navy officer who led the daring attack on the Confederate ironclad ram Albemarle. Born in Delafield, Wisconsin, on November 4, 1842, William Cushing won appointment as an acting midshipman on September 25, 1857, but his failure to apply himself to his studies led to his resignation from the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, on March 23, 1861. When the Civil War began, Cushing was appointed an acting master’s mate aboard the ship of the line Minnesota. In October he again received an appointment as a midshipman and was assigned to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron. On July 16, 1862, he was promoted to lieutenant. In October 1862, now commanding the armed tug Ellis, Cushing raided Tybee Inlet, North Carolina, to destroy a Confederate saltworks there. He then led a raid on Jacksonville, North Carolina, in which he was forced to destroy the Ellis in New River inlet on November 25 to prevent its capture. By now Cushing was regarded as a daring and resourceful commander. Cushing next commanded in succession the ex-ferryboats and side-wheeler fourth rates Commodore Barney and Shokokon. In September 1863 he took command of the screw steamer Monticello, and in February and June 1864 Cushing led night missions behind Confederate lines.

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On July 5, 1864, Rear Admiral Samuel P. Lee, commanding the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, asked Cushing to lead an effort to destroy the powerful Confederate ironclad ram Albemarle at Plymouth, North Carolina. Lee approved Cushing’s plan for an attack by two launches fitted with spar torpedoes. Traveling to Washington, Cushing secured final approval from Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles. Cushing then obtained two steam launches in New York City and supervised their fitting out. One developed engine problems during the trip south and was captured. Cushing arrived in the North Carolina sounds with Steam Picket Boat No. 1 on October 24. The new comU.S. Navy lieutenant William B. Cushing led mander of the North Atlantic Block- the daring attack that sank the Confederate ading Squadron, Rear Admiral David ironclad ram Albemarle with a spar torpedo D. Porter, approved Cushing’s request on October 27, 1864. He also distinguished that he be allowed to undertake the himself in the successful Union attack on mission with only one launch. The Fort Fisher, North Carolina in January 1865. (Library of Congress) attack on the night of October 27 was successful. Cushing was one of only 2 men in the attacking party to escape; 2 others drowned and 11 were captured. For the deed, Cushing received the thanks of Congress and promotion to lieutenant commander on October 27, 1864. Commanding the fourth-rate side-wheeler steamer Monticello, Cushing participated in the successful Union assault on Fort Fisher, North Carolina, in January 1865. He spent the last months of the war supervising the removal of Confederate mines. Cushing continued on active service with the navy after the war. He was promoted to commander on January 31, 1872, and the next year, while in command of the screw sloop Wyoming, he threatened to open fire on Santiago, Cuba, to prevent the killing of additional American sailors detained there from the Virginius, a ship that had been captured by the Spanish while running arms to rebels on the island. A congressional committee later vindicated Cushing for “upholding the honor of the American flag.” Assigned as executive officer of the Washington Navy Yard in August 1874, Cushing suffered a mental and physical collapse in late November and died at the Government Hospital for the Insane in Washington, D.C., on December 17, 1874. Cushing’s brother, U.S. Army first

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lieutenant Alonzo Cushing, was killed in the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863, but his bravery there earned him hero status in the North and posthumous promotion to lieutenant colonel. Spencer C. Tucker See also Albemarle, CSS; Albemarle, CSS, Destruction of; Albemarle Sound; Albemarle Sound, Battle of; Fort Fisher Campaign; Lee, Samuel Phillips; Naval Academy, United States; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Porter, David Dixon; Spar Torpedo; Torpedoes; Washington Navy Yard; Welles, Gideon

References Cushing, William B. The Sea Eagle: The Civil War Letters of LCdr. William B. Cushing, U.S.N. Edited by Alden R. Carter. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2009. Elliott, Robert G. Ironclads on the Roanoke: Gilbert Elliott’s Albemarle. Shippensburg, PA: White Mane, 1999. Schneller, Robert J., Jr. Cushing: Civil War SEAL. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 2004.

D Dahlgren, John Adolph Bernard Birth Date: November 13, 1809 Death Date: July 12, 1870 U.S. Navy admiral and developer of a system of ordnance that bears his name. Born in Philadelphia on November 13, 1809, John A. Dahlgren was the son of the Swedish consul in that city. The elder Dahlgren died suddenly in 1824, placing his family in dire financial straits. That winter, John Dahlgren applied to become a midshipman, but the U.S. Navy rejected his application. Dahlgren then shipped as a merchant seaman to gain experience. This and letters from influential connections helped him secure appointment as an acting midshipman in February 1826. Following cruises in the frigate Macedonian and sloop Ontario, Dahlgren was advanced to passed midshipman on April 28, 1832. Assigned in 1834 to the Coast Survey, Dahlgren showed a great interest in math and science. He spent three years there, making lieutenant on March 8, 1837. But this duty caused Dahlgren serious eye problems and led to two years ashore, detached from duty. Returned to active duty, Dahlgren was on the frigate Cumberland in the Mediterranean during 1843–1844. On his return to the United States, Dahlgren was assigned to direct ordnance activities at the Washington Navy Yard. Here he found his true calling. Dahlgren designed a new lock for firing guns, an improved primer, and sights Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren designed the graduated in yards. In 1848 he tested system of naval guns that bear his name. He 32-pounders and 8-inch guns and yearned for command at sea, however. His recorded the results, providing for the friendship with President Abraham Lincoln ultimately brought him command of naval first time ranging data for these guns. forces off Charleston where he had only In 1849 Dahlgren produced a new limited success. He is shown here off howitzer for the navy. The howit- Charleston with one of his rifled guns on the zer appeared as 12- and 24-pounder screw sloop Pawnee. (Library of Congress) 139

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smoothbores and as a 4-inch (20-pounder) rifle. These were the finest boat guns of their time in the world and remained in service with the U.S. Navy until the 1880s. Dahlgren is, however, chiefly remembered for the system of heavy smoothbore muzzle-loading ordnance that bears his name. These new guns appeared in a variety of sizes, from 32-pounders to 15-inch, and even—after the Civil War—20-inch bore. Dahlgren also designed rifled guns, although these were not as successful as his smoothbores, and most were withdrawn from service in 1862. At the beginning of 1861, Dahlgren had been in the navy for 35 years: some 8 years in assignments afloat, 19 years in shore duty, and 7 years awaiting orders in a navy with too many officers for available assignments. Dahlgren was promoted to commander on September 14, 1855. When the commandant of the Washington Navy Yard, Captain Franklin Buchanan, joined the Confederacy early in 1861, Dahlgren replaced him. Promoted to captain on July 10, he was named a rear admiral on February 7, 1863. Dahlgren became close friends with President Abraham Lincoln, who often visited the yard. Dahlgren very much wanted the glory of command at sea. Never popular with his brother officers because of his relentless pursuit of recognition and his self-promotion, Dahlgren used his influence with Lincoln to his advantage. When Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles replaced Rear Admiral Samuel F. Du Pont as commander of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, Dahlgren sought that command; but Welles, who disliked Dahlgren, gave it to Rear Admiral Andrew H. Foote instead. A tentative arrangement was worked out whereby Dahlgren would go to the squadron with Foote, although Dahlgren insisted that he have separate command of vessels for the attack on Charleston. All this became moot when Foote became suddenly ill in June 1863 on the way to take up his command. He died in New York City, whereupon Lincoln prevailed on Welles to appoint Dahlgren in his place. Most of Dahlgren’s time with the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron was spent at sea off the coast of Charleston, trying to seal off that harbor and protect his squadron from Confederate attack. Dahlgren personally led monitor attacks on the Confederate forts, but as with Du Pont before him, he was unable to take Charleston. Also like Du Pont, he was unwilling to run risks and rejected an attempt to force the inner harbor. A boat attack on Fort Sumter on the night of September 8, 1863, was a dismal failure. Dahlgren’s lack of success partly resulted from the lack of coordination between army and navy. Dahlgren did assist Union land forces in taking Savannah and ultimately Charleston. He also directed an expedition up the St. Johns River in Florida. Dahlgren suffered a personal loss when his son Ulrich, an army colonel, was killed in a raid on Richmond in 1864. After the war Dahlgren commanded the South Pacific Squadron for two years. He then returned to command the Bureau of Ordnance. During his naval career Dahlgren was a prolific author on ordnance subjects. At the time of his death on July 12, 1870, in Washington, D.C., Dahlgren commanded the Washington Navy Yard. Spencer C. Tucker

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See also Amphibious Warfare; Artillery Projectiles, Naval; Buchanan, Franklin; Charleston, South Carolina; Coast Survey, U.S.; Dahlgren Boat Howitzers; Dahlgren Guns; Du Pont, Samuel Francis; Fort Sumter, Union Attacks on; Foote, Andrew Hull; Lincoln, Abraham; Naval Ordnance; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Washington Navy Yard; Welles, Gideon

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Dahlgren, John A. Shells and Shell Guns. Philadelphia: King and Baird, 1856. Dahlgren, Madeleine Vinton. Memoir of John A. Dahlgren, Rear-Admiral United States Navy. Boston: James R. Osgood, 1882. Schneller, Robert J., Jr. A Quest for Glory: A Biography of Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1996. Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001.

Dahlgren Boat Howitzers In the early days of naval warfare, most guns aboard ship were small man-killers to be employed at close quarters. As the size of guns increased and their numbers decreased, some small guns were retained for use in the fighting tops of larger ships, to fire down on the men working the top deck of an enemy ship. Smaller guns, known as swivels, were mounted in the rail of small warships and boats. Boat guns were used in the launches and boats carried aboard larger ships for such occasions when an enemy could be attacked only in shallow water or over land. Such guns needed to combine the greatest power with the least weight, and carronades were the weapons favored in the early U.S. Navy. The need for a standard boat gun design had been conclusively demonstrated in the Mexican-American War (1846–1848). The first standard boat gun in the U.S. Navy was the Dahlgren boat howitzer of 1850. Developed by Lieutenant John A. Dahlgren at the Washington Navy Yard, it was the first U.S. Navy weapon designed specifically for amphibious warfare. It appeared first in three different sizes: a 12-pounder (4.62-inch bore) light howitzer of 430 pounds; a 12-pounder (4.62-inch bore) of 760 pounds; and a 24-pounder (5.82-inch bore) of 1,310 pounds. Other types appeared later, including the small 12-pounder of approximately 300 pounds, and rifled guns in 3.4-inch bore (12-pounder) of 880 pounds, and 4-inch bore (20-pounder) of 1,340 pounds. All Dahlgren boat howitzers were chambered at the bottom of the bore. In external appearance, they had a smooth form. Production models, with the exception of the 4-inch rifled gun, were secured to their carriage by a loop underneath the gun. The 4-incher had trunnions (lugs

142 |â•‡ Dahlgren Boat Howitzers

The U.S. Navy side-wheel auxiliary Philadelphia, its officers with a 12-pounder Dahlgren boat howitzer mounted on a field carriage. The Dahlgren boat howitzer provided highly effective service throughout the conflict, especially in riverine warfare. (Library of Congress)

on either side of the gun), as did a standard naval carriage. Elevation was accomplished by means of a screw passing through the cascabel knob. As with other naval guns of the period, the Dahlgren boat howitzers were fitted with Dahlgren’s percussion hammer or lock. Placed in the bow of a launch, the Dahlgren boat howitzer could be pivoted 120 degrees without altering the direction of the vessel. It could provide rapid fire against small boats, light vessels, and covering fire in an amphibious assault. The 12-pounder was designed to provide ground-fire support to accompanying parties of disembarked seamen. On landing, the howitzer could be rapidly mounted on the field carriage. It was easily returned to its launch mode and reembarked. Such changes could be accomplished by 8 to 10 men in two to three minutes. The field carriage weighed less than 500 pounds, only about half the weight for army pieces of comparable caliber. It was made entirely of wrought iron, save the wheels, which were made of wood. Since there were occasional instances

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of the wooden wheels breaking, Dahlgren proposed in 1862 substituting more durable iron wheels of a little more weight. Because sailors rather than horses hauled the guns, a small wheel was added at the end of the trail for ease of movement. The howitzer was pulled by means of a drag rope attached to the trail. The field carriage was carried in the stern of the launch. The essential antipersonnel mission of the howitzer is shown in the fact that no shot (solid ball) was included in its ammunition. It consisted instead of shell, canister, and shrapnel or spherical case. Dahlgren howitzers could be fired rapidly. In drill the 12-pounders were fired at rates of seven and eight times a minute. In the limited confines of a launch, where the howitzer was more difficult to service, the maximum sustained rate was five times a minute. During the Civil War, the heavy 12-pounder was the favored boat howitzer; the 24-pounders, although officially boat armament, usually remained aboard ship. The howitzers were on occasion the standard shipboard armament, with the 24-pounders deemed especially useful in service with the Union river flotillas. Their rapid rate of fire and the close quarters of river warfare made the boat howitzers a natural choice for that service during the Civil War. On assuming command of the Mississippi Squadron, David D. Porter requested 200 Dahlgren boat howitzers. Dahlgren boat howitzers also served ashore in the South during the winter of 1864–1865 in the Naval Brigade of Admiral Dahlgren’s South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, and a number served in the armies of both sides. Dahlgren boat howitzers continued in U.S. Navy service well past the Civil War. Not until the 1870s did the navy begin the transition to new breech-loading howitzers. Dependable and long in service, the Dahlgren boat howitzers were the finest boat guns of their time in the world. Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Artillery Projectiles, Naval; Dahlgren, John Adolph Bernard; Dahlgren Guns; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Naval Brigade; Naval Ordnance; Porter, David Dixon; Riverine Warfare; Washington Navy Yard

References Dahlgren, John. Boat Armament of the United States Navy. 2nd ed. Philadelphia: King and Baird, 1856. Olmstead, Edwin, Wayne E. Stark, and Spencer C. Tucker. The Big Guns: Civil War Siege, Seacoast, and Naval Cannon. Alexandria Bay, NY: Museum Restoration Service, 1997. Tucker, Spencer C. “The Dahlgren Boat Howitzer.” Naval History 6(3) (Fall 1992): 50–54. U.S. Navy Department, Bureau of Ordnance. Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy, Relating to the Preparation of Vessels of War for Battle, to the Duties of Officers and Others When at Quarters, to Ordnance and Ordnance Stores, and to Gunnery. 2nd ed. Washington, DC: G. W. Bowman, 1860.

144 |â•‡ Dahlgren Guns

Dahlgren Guns Name given to a system of guns developed by U.S. Navy commander, later rear admiral, John A. Dahlgren and used extensively throughout the U.S. Civil War by both sides. In many ways they marked the apogee of the heavy muzzle-loading gun at sea. Dahlgren first arrived at the Washington Navy Yard in 1844 as a lieutenant, assigned to conduct ordnance-ranging experiments. Soon he was designing new firing locks for guns and had developed a new system of naval ordnance. In 1849 Dahlgren produced a new boat howitzer for the navy. Cast of bronze, the howitzer appeared as a 12-pounder (light, 660 pounds; and heavy, 750 pounds) and a 24-pounder smoothbore (1,300 pounds). There were also 3.4-inch (12-pounder, 870-pound) and 4-inch (20-pounder, 1,350-pound) rifles. Dahlgren boat howitzers were the finest guns of their time in the world and remained in service with the U.S. Navy until the 1880s. They were also copied by other navies. Dahlgren is chiefly remembered, however, for the system of heavy smoothbore, muzzle-loading ordnance that bears his name. In January 1850 Dahlgren submitted a draft for a IX-inch gun (shell guns were identified by Roman numerals) to the chief of ordnance. The first prototype Dahlgren gun was cast at Fort Pitt Foundry and delivered to the Washington Navy Yard in May 1850. The original IX-inch gun had a more angular form and only one vent. Later the design was modified in favor of a curved shape and double vent, and in 1856 the side vents were restored. The purpose of the second vent was to extend the life of the gun. Repeated firings enlarged the vent opening; after this occurred the second vent, which had been filled with zinc, was opened and the original vent was sealed with zinc. Dahlgren guns, with their smooth exterior, curved lines, and preponderant weight of metal at the breech, resembled in appearance soda water bottles, and were sometimes so-called. Dahlgren designed them so as to place the greatest weight of metal at the point of greatest strain at the breech. The IX-inch Dahlgren smoothbore remained the most common broadside, carriage-mounted gun in the U.S. Navy in the Civil War; the XI-inch, the prototype of which was cast in 1851, was the most widely used pivot-mounted gun. Its 11-inch shell could pierce 4.5 inches of plate iron backed by 20 inches of solid oak. Dahlgren guns appeared in a variety of sizes: 32-pounder (3,300 and 4,500 pounds), VIII-inch (6,500 pounds), IX-inch (12,280 pounds), X-inch (12,500 for shell and 16,500 pounds for shot), XI-inch (16,000 pounds), XIII-inch (34,000 pounds), and XV-inch (42,000 pounds). There was even a XX-inch (97,300-pound) Dahlgren gun, which did not see service aboard ship during the war. The XV-inch Dahlgren was employed aboard Union monitors. Dahlgrens also appeared as rifled guns, somewhat similar in shape to the smoothbores. Some of these had separate bronze trunnion and breech straps. Dahlgren rifles appeared in these sizes: 4.4-inch/30-pounder (3,200 pounds), 5.1-inch/50-pounder

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One of the six IX-inch smoothbore Dahlgren guns in the Confederate ironclad Virginia, photographed at the Washington Navy Yard in 1933. The muzzle end of the gun was shot off in the course of the engagement in Hampton Roads with the U.S. Navy frigate Congress and sloop Cumberland on March 8, 1862. Note the bulbous shape of the gun at the breech end. This led to Dahlgren guns sometimes being known as “soda bottles.” (Naval History and Heritage Command)

(5,100 pounds), 6-inch/80-pounder (8,000 pounds), 7.5-inch/150-pounder (16,700 pounds), and 12-inch (45,520 pounds, only three of which were cast). Dahlgren’s rifles were not as successful as his smoothbores, and in February 1862 most were withdrawn from service. Apart from his rifles, Dahlgren’s muzzle-loaders were extraordinarily reliable. They remained the standard guns in the navy until the introduction of breechloading heavy guns in 1885. Ironically, it was solid shot fired with a full charge of powder, rather than shell, that proved most effective against the Confederate ironclads. Spencer C. Tucker See also Artillery Projectiles, Naval; Dahlgren, John Adolph Bernard; Dahlgren Boat Howitzers; Ironclads, Confederate; Ironclads, Union; Naval Ordnance; Washington Navy Yard

References Dahlgren, John A. Shells and Shell Guns. Philadelphia: King and Baird, 1856. Olmstead, Edwin, Wayne E. Stark, and Spencer C. Tucker. The Big Guns: Civil War Siege, Seacoast, and Naval Cannon. Alexandria Bay, NY: Museum Restoration Service, 1997. Tucker, Spencer C. Arming the Fleet: U.S. Navy Ordnance in the Muzzle-Loading Era. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989.

146 |â•‡ Davids, CSS

Davids, CSS Small torpedo boats used by the Confederates to attack Union warships blockading Charleston. The prototype, named the David, was about 48 feet, 6 inches, in length and had a four-man crew. Operating low in the water, the David resembled a submarine but was in fact strictly a surface vessel propelled by a steam engine. The David and its sisters took in water as ballast in order to run on the surface awash, but the vessel’s open hatch, necessary to provide air for the steam engine, invited disaster through swamping. The David mounted a spar torpedo, a long pole with an explosive charge at the end of 60 pounds of powder inside a copper casing. On the night of October 5, 1863, commanded by Lieutenant William T. Glassell, the David set out on an attempt to sink the most powerful ship of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, the ironclad USS New Ironsides. The David closed to about 50 yards before it was discovered. Hailed from the Union ship, the crew of the David responded with a shotgun blast and then placed the spar torpedo. Although the explosion next to its hull damaged the Union ironclad and necessitated it leaving station for repair, the ship did not sink. The wave created by the blast washed into the torpedo boat and put out the fire in its steam engine. Believing that the David was sinking, Glassell and two other crew members abandoned ship; one of them subsequently returned to the David, where Engineer James H. Tomb succeeded in restarting its furnace and escaping. Glassell and another crewman were captured. A half dozen others of this design, all known as Davids, were also laid down, but only a few were actually completed. The Confederates carried out other subsequent attempts against Union ships at Charleston but without success. Spar torpedoes were also affixed to the bows of ironclad rams, and one was used in the successful attack by the submarine H. L. Hunley against the Union steam sloop Housatonic. Despite the failures, the threat of the Davids and their spar torpedoes had a pronounced effect on the Union crews. To protect his ships, Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren, commander of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, ordered a number of preventive measures, including picket duty by monitors, tugs, and boats; netting; and boat howitzers kept loaded with canister. Spencer C. Tucker See also Blockade of the Confederacy; Charleston, South Carolina; Dahlgren, John Adolph Bernard; Glassell, William T.; H. L. Hunley, CSS; Housatonic, USS; Navy, CSA; New Ironsides, USS; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Spar Torpedo; Submarines; Torpedoes

References Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 15. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1902.

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Davidson, Hunter Birth Date: September 20, 1826 Death Date: February 16, 1913 Confederate Navy officer. Born in the District of Columbia on September 20, 1826, Hunter Davidson received a midshipman’s warrant in the U.S. Navy on October 19, 1841, and was promoted to passed midshipman on August 10, 1847. He participated in the Mexican-American War (1846–1848) in the sloop Portsmouth. Promoted to master on September 14, 1855, and to lieutenant on September 15, 1855, Davidson became an instructor at the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis. He then served in the sloop Dale off Africa in the suppression of the slave trade. Following the secession of Virginia from the Union, Davidson resigned his commission on April 23, 1861. In June he received a commission as a lieutenant in the Confederate Navy and for the remainder of that year served at the Norfolk (Gosport) Navy Yard and in the Confederate Navy schoolship Patrick Henry. Assigned in February 1862 as a lieutenant in the ironclad CSS Virginia, he took part in the engagements in Hampton Roads on March 8–9, 1862, as the commander of the ironclad’s forward gun division. With the subsequent scuttling of the Virginia, Davidson assumed command of the small gunboat Teaser in the James River. Davidson made his real contribution to the Confederacy working with Commander Matthew F. Maury in the Torpedo Division of the Bureau of Ordnance and Hydrography beginning in May 1862. When Maury went to Europe later that year, Davidson headed the Submarine Battery Service responsible for placing torpedoes (mines) in the James River to prevent U.S. Navy ships from operating in the river. Although a Union gunboat succeeded in damaging and capturing the Teaser on July 4, Davidson had use of the Torpedo for mine-laying operations. By the autumn of 1862 he was able to report that he had placed torpedoes containing nearly 12,000 pounds of explosives in the river. His electronically detonated torpedoes sank the Union warship Commodore Jones on May 6, 1864. On April 9, 1864, Davidson led a daring raid near Newport News, Virginia, against the U.S. Navy sailing frigate Minnesota with the torpedo boat Squib. Although Davidson succeeded in exploding the spar torpedo against the Minnesota, it caused little damage. Davidson was able to escape in his boat back up the James. This operation earned him promotion to commander. Davidson then joined Maury in England. He ended his service in the Confederate Navy as commander of the City of Richmond, designated the consort to the Confederate ironclad Stonewall in January 1865. Unable to accept the defeat of the Confederacy, Davidson traveled abroad for a time and then resided in Maryland, before moving to Argentina, where he joined the Argentine Navy in 1874 to establish a torpedo division in its service. He resigned in 1885 and moved to Paraguay, where he died on February 16, 1913. Spencer C. Tucker

148 |â•‡ Davis, Charles Henry See also Buchanan, Franklin; Hampton Roads, Battle of; James River; Maury, Matthew Fontaine; Naval Academy, United States; Navy, CSA; Norfolk Navy Yard; Spar Torpedo; Stonewall, CSS; Submarine Battery Service; Torpedoes; Virginia, CSS

References Coski, John M. Capital Navy: The Men, Ships and Operations of the James River Squadron. Campbell, CA: Savas, 1996. Jacobs, Charles. “Hunter Davidson: Unsung Naval Commander.” Washington Times, February 24, 1996. Register of Officers of the Confederate States Navy, 1861–1865: As Compiled and Revised by the Office of Naval Records and Library, United States Navy Department, 1931, from All Available Data. With a new introduction by John M. Carroll. Mattituck, NY: J. M. Carroll, 1981. [Originally published by the Naval Record and Library, U.S. Navy Department, in 1898 and revised in 1931.] Wolters, Timothy S. “Electric Torpedoes in the Confederacy: Reconciling Conflicting Histories.” Journal of Military History 72(3) (July 2008): 755–783.

Davis, Charles Henry Birth Date: January 16, 1807 Death Date: February 18, 1877 U.S. naval officer, scientist, and chief of the U.S. Navy’s Bureau of Navigation (1862–1865). Charles Henry Davis was born on January 16, 1807, in Boston, Massachusetts. He attended Harvard University for two years before joining the navy as a midshipman on August 12, 1823. He was promoted to passed midshipman on March 23, 1829, and to lieutenant on March 3, 1831. Dedicated to scientific inquiry, Davis made the first comprehensive survey of the Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Maine coastlines. He oversaw the establishment of the American Nautical Almanac in 1849 and published several scientific books and articles. Davis was also one of the founders of the National Academy of Sciences in 1863. Davis was promoted to commander on June 12, 1854. At the beginning of 1861, Davis had been in the navy for 37 years: some 18 years in sea service, 14 years in shore assignments, and 4 years awaiting orders in a navy with too many officers for available billets. Davis was promoted to captain on November 15, 1861. He was a member of the three-man Ironclad Board that approved designs for the first three Union ironclads, including John Ericsson’s Monitor. Davis participated in the Union capture of Port Royal, South Carolina, and in May 1862 he took command of the U.S. Navy’s Upper Mississippi Flotilla from Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote. On May 10, the day after taking command, Davis fought a sharp battle with Confederate gunboats in the Battle of Plum Point Bend. He commanded the Union flotilla in the Union naval victory in the Battle of Memphis on June 6, 1862.

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Davis left his command on the Mississippi in October 1862 to become chief of the U.S. Navy’s Bureau of Navigation and was advanced to rear admiral on February 7, 1863. Created by Congress in July 1862, the Bureau of Navigation was responsible for providing nautical charts and instruments; supervising the Naval Observatory, the Hydrographic Office, and the Nautical Almanac Office; and administering the U.S. Naval Academy. After the war, Davis served as the superintendent of the Naval Observatory from 1865 to 1867, and again from 1874 to 1877. Davis died in Washington, D.C., on February 18, 1877. Michael R. Hall See also Coast Survey, U.S.; Ericsson, John; Foote, Andrew Hull; Ironclad Board, U.S. Navy; Ironclads, Union; Memphis, First Battle of; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Monitor, USS; Naval Academy, United States; Navy, U.S.; Plum Point Bend, Battle of; Port Royal Sound, Battle of

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Davis, C. H. Memoir of Charles Henry Davis, 1807–1877. Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences, 1902. Slagle, Jay. Ironclad Captain: Seth Ledyard Phelps and the U.S. Navy, 1841–1864. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1996. Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001. Tucker, Spencer C. Andrew Foote: Civil War Admiral on Western Waters. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000.

Davis, Jefferson Finis Birth Date: June 3, 1808 Death Date: December 6, 1889 U.S. senator, secretary of war, and president of the Confederate States of America (CSA). Born in Christian County, Kentucky, on June 3, 1808, Jefferson Finis Davis lived in Louisiana and Mississippi as a youth. He attended Jefferson College (Mississippi) and Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky, then entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1824, graduating from there in 1828. As a second lieutenant in the 1st U.S. Infantry Regiment, Davis was assigned to the northwestern frontier. He also served in the Black Hawk War of 1832. He soon became romantically involved with Sarah Knox Taylor, daughter of Colonel Zachary Taylor, who as his commanding officer opposed their marriage. Davis subsequently resigned his commission, married Taylor in 1835, and retired to Brierfield,

150 |â•‡ Davis, Jefferson Finis

a plantation on the banks of the Mississippi River north of Natchez, Mississippi, which Davis’s older brother Joseph had given him. His young wife died, and Davis secluded himself for several years before returning to public life. In 1843 Davis began his political career, running unsuccessfully for the state legislature. In 1844 he ran successfully for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. With the outbreak of the Mexican-American War in 1846, Davis resigned his congressional seat to accept the colonelcy of the 1st Mississippi Rifle Regiment, winning accolades for gallantry during the battles at Monterey and Buena Vista. Confederate president Jefferson Davis was understandably preoccupied with the threat He subsequently turned down a commission as brigadier general and left of land invasion of the South and largely turned over direction of naval affairs to his the military. capable secretary of the navy Stephen F. In 1847 Davis accepted an appointMallory. Only on rare occasions did Davis ment to the U.S. Senate, and in 1848 bypass Mallory. (Library of Congress) the state legislature reelected him to a full term. In the Senate he became chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs, but in 1851 he resigned to enter the Mississippi gubernatorial race. Campaigning on a platform opposing the Compromise of 1850, he lost. He nevertheless remained active in Democratic politics and campaigned vigorously for presidential candidate Franklin Pierce. Having won the election, Pierce appointed Davis secretary of war in 1853. Davis proved highly effective in this post, supporting the department’s ongoing modernization program that included the adoption of the percussion cap rifled musket. He also advocated the building of a transcontinental railroad along a southern route. As one of the most influential members of Pierce’s cabinet, Davis took a leading role in securing the president’s approval of the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act. Davis left the war office in 1857 and returned to the U.S. Senate that same year. In 1858 he made several speeches in which he derided secession. In 1860 Davis introduced a series of six strong proslavery resolutions in the Senate. Their chances of passage were nil, but Davis meant for them to become a rallying point for Southern Democrats, thereby barring likely Democratic presidential nominee Stephen A. Douglas’s platform. When the party convention met that summer, it split. Several weeks later, a Southern convention nominated Vice President

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John C. Breckinridge on a platform similar to the position Davis had staked out. In the fall, victory went neither to Breckinridge nor to Douglas, but to Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln. In response, seven states of the Deep South, including Mississippi, seceded from the Union, an action Davis strongly approved. In February 1861 a convention of the seceding states organized the CSA and chose Davis as president. Davis energetically began preparing the Confederacy for war. When Lincoln declined to withdraw U.S. troops from Fort Sumter, Davis authorized the use of force, resulting in an action on April 12 that initiated the Civil War. The North now mobilized for war, and four border states joined the Confederacy. Although his loyalty to the South and its cause of independence was unquestioned, Davis proved far less successful as president than his Union counterpart, Abraham Lincoln, who lacked Davis’s military experience and expertise. Prideful and stubborn, Davis could not abide criticism, and he regularly refused to compromise. Convinced of his own superior military knowledge, he often rejected sound advice and made a number of extraordinarily poor personnel assignments. His decision to withhold cotton exports at the beginning of the war, in the hopes of forcing Britain and France to recognize the Confederacy, proved a major blunder. Davis also could be accused of favoring his friends. Until the final few months of the war, the Confederate Congress generally cooperated with his policies, but the great loyalty of Southerners by the end of the war was to General Robert E. Lee rather than to Davis. In military matters, as did U.S. president Abraham Lincoln, Davis concentrated on the army. With the South short of resources and manufacturing facilities, the navy received short shrift. Confederate secretary of the navy Stephen R. Mallory may have been Davis’s best cabinet appointment, however. The two men knew each other from the Senate. In part because the two got on so well, Mallory was only one of two Confederate cabinet officers to keep the same position throughout the war. Mallory generally had his way in naval matters; only on rare occasions did Davis bypass Mallory and issue direct orders to commanders, as in April 1862 when the president ordered the obstruction of the Elizabeth River to prevent Union forces from retaking the Norfolk Navy Yard. It says much about Davis as a leader, however, that he often criticized Mallory, his loyal supporter. With the fall of Richmond impending, Davis fled the capital in early April 1865 in hopes of carrying on the war from somewhere else, but Union cavalry apprehended him near Irwinville, Georgia, on June 10. Davis was imprisoned for two years in Fort Monroe, Virginia, an unpleasant interlude that won him great sympathy among Southern whites. Although he had obviously committed treason, the government ultimately dropped the case against him. Following his release, Davis served as president of the Carolina Life Insurance Company. In 1877 he moved to “Beauvoir,” an estate near Biloxi, Mississippi, as a guest of its owner, Sarah Dorsey, who willed it to him on her death in 1879. There he wrote a two-volume memoir. Davis died in New Orleans on December 6, 1889. Ethan Rafuse

152 |â•‡ Declaration of Paris See also Fort Monroe, Virginia; Fort Sumter, South Carolina; Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, Relief Efforts and Beginning of the Civil War; Letters of Marque and Reprisal; Lincoln, Abraham; Mallory, Stephen Russell; Navy, CSA; Norfolk Navy Yard

References Cooper, William J. Jefferson Davis, American. New York: Vintage Books, 2001. Davis, William C. Jefferson Davis: The Man and His Hour. New York: Harper Perennial, 1992. Luraghi, Raimondo. A History of the Confederate Navy. Translated by Paolo D. Coletta. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1996. Woodworth, Steven E. Davis and Lee at War. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995.

Declaration of Paris International agreement entered into by the 7 participating nations of the Crimean War at the war’s end on April 15, 1856, for the purpose, among other things, of abolishing privateering. Formally known as the Paris Declaration Respecting Maritime Law, it was subsequently ratified by 45 other nations, not including Spain, Mexico, Venezuela, and the United States. The Americans objected to the terms of the clause concerning neutral property in wartime and prevented U.S. support for the abolition of privateering. In addition to abolishing privateering, the declaration held that a neutral flag protected enemy goods from seizure by a warring power, with the exception of contraband of war; neutral goods were not liable to capture under an enemy flag; and blockades, in order to be binding, had to be effective, that is maintained by a force sufficient to prevent access to the coast of the enemy and not merely a paper blockade (in name only). Despite the nation’s refusal to sign the abolition in 1856, in fact, the United States never again issued a privateer’s commission in wartime. The Confederacy, however, claimed that because the United States had not adhered to the declaration that it was free to employ privateers. U.S. naval crews remained eligible for the benefits of prizes captured during the Civil War and Spanish-American War, but in 1899 Congress ended that practice. The maritime law of nations remains the law of the sea today, and a naval vessel may take a valid enemy prize and adjudicate it in a prize court. But the entire proceeds belong to the nation. Donald A. Petrie and Spencer C. Tucker See also Blockade of the Confederacy; Blockade-Runners; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Davis, Jefferson Finis; Letters of Marque and Reprisal; Lincoln, Abraham; Navy, CSA; Navy, U.S.; Peterhoff Crisis; Privateers; Welles, Gideon

References Ronzitti, Natalino. The Law of Naval Warfare: A Collection of Agreements and Documents with Commentaries. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1988.

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Stark, Francis R. The Abolition of Privateering and the Declaration of Paris. New York: Columbia University, 1897.

Dewey, George Birth Date: December 26, 1837 Death Date: January 16, 1917 U.S. Navy admiral. Born in Montpelier, Vermont, on December 26, 1837, George Dewey wanted to go to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, but ended up attending the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis. He received his warrant as an acting midshipman on September 23, 1854, and graduated as a midshipman on June 11, 1858. Dewey was promoted to passed midshipman on January 18, 1861; to master on February 28, 1861; and to lieutenant on April 19, 1861. During the Civil War Dewey served aboard the steam frigate Mississippi and soon became its executive officer. Dewey took part in the passage of Flag Officer David G. Farragut’s fleet up the Mississippi River to New Orleans on April 24–25, 1862, and in operations against Port Hudson on March 14, 1863. He then served in the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron and, as the executive officer aboard the steam frigate Colorado, took part in operations against Fort Fisher (December 1864–January 1865). Promoted to lieutenant commander on March 3, 1865, Dewey ended the war aboard the steam sloop Kearsarge in European waters. During the next two decades, Dewey held a number of assignments. Promoted to commander on April 13, 1872, and to captain on September 27, 1884, Dewey received command of one of the navy’s first steel ships, the gunboat USS Dolphin, which was still under construction. Frustrated over the delays in its commissioning, Dewey secured command of the steam sloop Pensacola, flagship of the European squadron (1885–1889). Dewey returned to Washington as chief of the Bureau of Equipment (1889– 1893) and then was president of the Bureau of Inspection and Survey (1895–1897). As relations with Spain deteriorated over Cuba, and supported by his friend Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt, Dewey received command of the U.S. Asiatic Squadron in January 1898. When the U.S. battleship Maine exploded and sank in Havana Harbor on February 15, 1898, Dewey’s squadron was on its way to Hong Kong. Dewey had already begun preparations for a possible attack on the Spanish squadron in the Philippines. On April 25 the United States declared war on Spain, and three days later, under telegraph orders from the Navy Department, Dewey’s squadron steamed for the Philippines. On May 1 Dewey’s squadron faced off against the Spanish squadron at Manila Bay; in a matter of six hours, Dewey’s squadron reduced seven

154 |â•‡ Dictator, USS

Spanish warships to scrap, at a cost to the Americans of only seven men wounded. Dewey was promoted to rear admiral on May 11. Dewey’s role in the war largely ended with the naval Battle of Manila. Following the arrival of U.S. land forces, Dewey’s squadron supported the army’s capture of Manila on August 13 and subsequent operations in the Philippines. On March 2, 1899, Dewey was promoted to admiral of the navy. An exhausted Dewey sailed from the Philippines on May 20, 1899, and returned to the United States in September. In the spring of 1900 he made a brief bid for the presidency but dropped out to become president of the newly formed Navy General Board. Exempted from mandatory retirement, Dewey served in this post for 16 years and played an important role in U.S. Navy expansion. In 1903 Secretary of War Elihu Root and Secretary of the Navy William Moody established the Joint Army-Navy Board. Dewey became its chair, serving on this board and the Navy General Board until his death in Washington, D.C., on January 16, 1917. Spencer C. Tucker See also Fort Fisher Campaign; Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s Run Past; Kearsarge, USS; Naval Academy, United States; Navy, U.S.; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Port Hudson, Louisiana, Action at; Vicksburg, Mississippi, Mississippi Squadron Passage of

References Dewey, George. The Autobiography of George Dewey. 1913; reprint, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1987. Spector, Ronald. Admiral of the New Empire: The Life and Career of George Dewey. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1974. Williams, Vernon L. “George Dewey: Admiral of the Navy.” In Admirals of the New Steel Navy: Makers of the American Naval Tradition, 1880–1930, edited by James C. Bradford, 222–249. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1990. Wukovits, John F. “George Dewey: His Father’s Son.” In The Great Admirals: Command at Sea, 1587–1945, edited by Jack Sweetman, 306–325. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997.

Dictator, USS U.S. Navy ironclad. Designed by John Ericsson and named by him, the Dictator and another Ericsson-designed monitor, the Puritan, were contracted as large, seagoing monitors capable of breaking a foreign blockade. The impetus for their construction was the threat of war with Great Britain in the summer of 1862, following the Trent Affair. Both Naval Constructor John Lenthall and Naval Engineer Benjamin F. Isherwood registered doubts about the design of the ships, believing

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that the armor overhang on the sides would reduce speed and that the low freeboard of a monitor would be a serious disadvantage in rough seas. The third member of the Ironclad Board, Captain Joseph B. Smith, thought that the new ironclads were better suited as harbor defenders than as sea boats, and noted that three smaller ironclads could be had for the same cost as one of these large monitors. Despite this opposition, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles approved the contracts. The Dictator was built by the New York City firm of Delamater. Laid down on August 16, 1862, and launched on December 26, 1863, it was commissioned on November 11, 1864. Before that the Dictator “took part” in the election of 1864; positioned off the battery, its guns were loaded with canister to discourage any possibility of rioting. Quite large, the Dictator was more than four times the size of Ericsson’s original Monitor. The Dictator displaced 4,438 tons and was 3,033 tons burden. It was 314 feet in length of deck, 50 feet in extreme breadth over armor, and drew 20 feet, 6 inches, of water, leaving only 16 inches of hull above the water. Ericsson hoped for a speed of 16 knots and designed the ship with an extremely sharp bow. In this, the Dictator disappointed, for it made only 9 knots from Ericsson’s newly designed steam engine and single-screw propeller. Heavily armored, the Dictator had 15 inches of iron protection on the turret, 12 inches on the pilothouse, and 6 inches of side armor, with 1.5 inches on the deck. The armored shelf extended 6 feet over the sides of the ship. The turret had an interior diameter of 24 feet. A distinguishing feature of the ship in profile was a tall ventilator abaft the turret. The crew complement was 174 officers and men. Armament consisted of two XV-inch Dahlgren smoothbore guns, the largest afloat during the Civil War. Regarded as an excellent sea boat, the Dictator nonetheless experienced a number of problems on commissioning and had relatively low speed and endurance. The vessel was assigned to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron with the expectation that it could take part in the Fort Fisher expedition, but engine overheating precluded this. The ship was out of commission during December 1865–July 1869. It served in the Atlantic Squadron during 1869–1874. Out of commission during July 1871–January 1874, it again served with the Atlantic Squadron during 1874– 1877. The Dictator was decommissioned on June 1, 1877. Sold off on September 27, 1883, it was broken up for scrap. Spencer C. Tucker See also Ericsson, John; Fort Fisher Campaign; Ironclad Board, U.S. Navy; Ironclads, Union; Isherwood, Benjamin Franklin; Lenthall, John; Monitor, USS; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Puritan, USS; Smith, Joseph; Trent Affair; Welles, Gideon

References Canney, Donald L. The Old Steam Navy. 2 vols. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1990, 1993.

156 |â•‡ Discipline, Naval Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. II, Vol. 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1921.

Discipline, Naval The chief disciplinary problems aboard ship during the Civil War stemmed from fighting and gambling. Thievery was also rampant, and to help prevent it, the navy required the seamen to stencil their names into clothing. Nonetheless, Union seaman Tim Finn noted, “You had to be on the lookout all the time or they would steal the Shirt off your Back,” while Union seaman Chester B. DeWitt complained, “One cannot lay any thing down for a few minutes, but it is gone in the twinkling of an eye.” Major infractions on board ship were dealt with by summary court-martial proceedings. Convictions brought a wide variety of punishments. By congressional order and much to the chagrin of many officers, the navy had abolished flogging in 1850. Afterward, the chief means of discipline on board ship were confiscation of pay and privileges; confinement, in or without irons; solitary confinement, with rations of only bread and water; loss of liberty ashore; additional duties; and dismissal from the service with a bad conduct discharge. Spencer C. Tucker See also African American Sailors; Navy, U.S.; Officers and Seamen in the U.S. and Confederate Navies; Shipboard Life

References Bennett, Michael J. Union Jacks: Yankee Sailors in the Civil War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. Ringle, Dennis J. Life in Mr. Lincoln’s Navy. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998.

Dornin, Thomas Aloysius Birth Date: May 1, 1800 Death Date: April 22, 1874 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Ireland on May 1, 1800, Thomas Aloysius Dornin immigrated to the United States with his family as a boy. He secured a midshipman’s warrant in the U.S. Navy on May 2, 1815. Dornin was promoted to lieutenant on January 13, 1825, to commander on September 8, 1841, and to captain on September 14, 1855. In early 1861 Dornin had been in the navy for 45 years: 26 years of

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sea service, 13 years in assignments ashore, and 6 years awaiting orders in a navy that had too many officers. At the beginning of the Civil War, Dornin commanded the screw frigate San Jacinto in the East India Squadron. Upon returning in his ship to the Portsmouth Navy Yard in September 1861, Dornin was assigned command of the naval station at Baltimore, Maryland. He held that position into 1865. Dornin was promoted to commodore on the retired list on July 16, 1862. Dornin’s wife, however, supported the Confederacy and remained in Norfolk, Virginia, throughout the war. Their two sons, one of them an 1860 U.S. Naval Academy graduate and serving midshipman, fought for the Confederacy. Commodore Dornin was assigned as a lighthouse inspector during 1868–1869. He died in Norfolk on April 22, 1874. Spencer C. Tucker See also Naval Academy, United States; Portsmouth Navy Yard


Drayton, Percival Birth Date: August 25, 1812 Death Date: August 4, 1865 U.S. Navy officer. Born outside Charleston, South Carolina, at his family’s Magnolia Plantation on August 25, 1812, Percival Drayton was the son of a prominent lawyer who eventually relocated to Philadelphia. Drayton secured a midshipman’s warrant on December 1, 1827. He first went to sea in the frigate Hudson in the South Atlantic. He was promoted to passed midshipman on June 10, 1833, and to lieutenant on February 28, 1838. Drayton’s subsequent sea tours included the Mediterranean, the Pacific, and the Atlantic, and he also served at the Naval Observatory. Promoted to commander on September 14, 1855, Drayton took part in the Paraguay Expedition of 1858–1859, which secured an indemnity from that country for its firing on the U.S. Navy steamer Water Witch. At the beginning of the Civil War, Drayton was stationed at the Philadelphia Naval Yard, but in the autumn of 1861 he received command of the screw steamer Pocahontas. Drayton participated in the Port Royal Expedition on November 7, 1861, and his ship’s effective gunnery proved important in the Confederate

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abandonment of Fort Walker. Drayton’s brother, Confederate brigadier general Thomas F. Drayton, had charge of the shore fortifications. Drayton joined Captain Samuel F. Du Pont’s South Atlantic Blockading Squadron in March 1862 and was promoted to captain on July 16, 1862. In command of the screw sloop Pawnee, he was active in blockade operations along the South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida coasts. In September 1862 he took command of the monitor Passaic and participated in the fourth U.S. Navy attack on Fort McAllister, Georgia, on March 3, 1863, and in the unsuccessful assault upon Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor on April 7. Drayton was then appointed superintendent of ordnance at the New York Navy Yard. In December 1863 Drayton became fleet captain to Rear Admiral David G. Farragut, commander of the West Gulf Coast Blockading Squadron. Drayton commanded Farragut’s flagship, the screw sloop Hartford, and played an important role in the U.S. Navy victory in the Battle of Mobile Bay (August 5, 1864). In late April 1865 Drayton became chief of the Bureau of Navigation in Washington, D.C. He became ill and died in that city on August 4, 1865. Joseph Heim See also Blockade of the Confederacy; Blockade-Runners; Brooklyn Navy Yard; Charleston, South Carolina, Du Pont’s Attack on; Du Pont, Samuel Francis; Farragut, David Glasgow; Fort McAllister, Georgia, Union Attacks on; Hartford, USS; Ironclads, Union; Mobile Bay, Battle of; Passaic-Class Monitors; Pawnee, USS; Philadelphia Navy Yard; Port Royal Sound, Battle of; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Browning, Robert M., Jr. Success Is All That Was Expected: The South Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War. Dulles, VA: Brassey’s, 2002. Taaffe, Stephen R. Commanding Lincoln’s Navy: Union Naval Leadership during the Civil War. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2009.

Drewry’s Bluff, First Battle of Event Date: May 15, 1862 Engagement on the James River below Richmond between Union ships and Confederate shore batteries. Although there were still five Confederate gunboats in the James, the scuttling of the Confederate ironclad Virginia on May 11, 1862, removed the only Confederate threat to Fortress Monroe and gave the Union’s more powerful ships the run of the river as far as Drewry’s Bluff, Virginia, eight miles from Richmond. U.S. president Abraham Lincoln pressed Flag Officer Louis M. Goldsborough, commander of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, to take immediate action. He in turn ordered Commander John Rodgers to proceed to Richmond with the ironclads Monitor, Naugatuck, and Galena; the wooden screw gunboat Aroostook; and the side-wheeler Port Royal, and shell the city into submission.

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At 6:30 a.m. on May 15, Rodgers’s squadron came within sight of the Confederate defenses at Drewry’s Bluff, named for property owner Augustus H. Drewry and officially designated Fort Darling. Initially, the Confederates had given little thought to defenses there because they assumed that the Virginia would prevent any Union advance upriver. Work began at the beginning of March and intensified following the loss of Yorktown. Drewry’s Bluff was the best, perhaps last, place for the Confederates to halt a Union advance up the James to Richmond. There the river took a sharp bend and narrowed. High, sheer 90-foot cliffs dominated the south bank, and at their top the Confederates placed a battery of three heavy guns. To prevent passage upriver, they also sank a number of hulks in midstream and used pile drivers to position cribs of stone and other debris. Knowing his wooden ships were no match for the Union ironclads, Commander John R. Tucker of the Confederate James River Squadron sacrificed one of his two most powerful ships, sinking the Jamestown in the river as an added obstruction. Tucker’s squadron added five guns to the shore defenses. These were placed outside the works, giving the defenders a total of eight guns. Divided equally between rifles and smoothbores, the guns commanded a mile of the river downstream. Drewry commanded the battery as captain of the Southside Heavy Artillery. Navy lieutenant Catesby ap Roger Jones of the Virginia had charge of a detachment of marines and seamen from that ironclad, while an infantry brigade occupied rifle pits along the riverbank. Finally, the gunboat Patrick Henry took up position behind the obstructions, adding its guns to the Confederate defense. The Confederate positions were well placed. The James was too narrow at this point for the Union ships to maneuver, and the obstructions in the middle of the river easily blocked the deeper-draft ironclads. Before the Union crews could hope to work at removing the obstructions, they would have to neutralize both the shore batteries and the Confederate infantrymen. At 7:45 a.m. Rodgers brought the Galena to about 600 yards from the bluff and anchored broadside to the channel so that its guns could be brought to bear. Even before the ship was positioned, the Confederate defenders began the battle by sending two shots into the Union ironclad’s port bow. At about 9:00 a.m. the Monitor passed the Galena and attempted to join the fight, but its guns could not be elevated sufficiently to fire on the batteries along the bluff, and so it retired downriver with the Aroostook and Port Royal. The battle, which lasted three and a half hours and ended at about 11:00 a.m., saw the Confederates fire perhaps 100 shots and the Union ships half that number. The Naugatuck’s 6.4-inch (100-pounder) Parrott rifle burst halfway through the engagement, putting that ship out of action, and the Port Royal was kept busy firing against the Confederate infantry along the riverbank. Most of the Confederate fire was directed against the Galena, and it took a terrible pounding.

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The battle revealed the serious shortcomings in the Galena’s armor. The ship was struck 43 times, and 13 shots penetrated, 1 embedding itself in the opposite side of the hull. The ironclad’s timbers and frames were cut up, and it took on water. Thirteen crewmen were killed, and 11 were wounded. Cited for bravery in the action, Corporal John B. Mackie of the ironclad subsequently received the Medal of Honor, the first awarded to a member of the U.S. Marine Corps. Confederate losses in the battle were 7 killed and 8 wounded. Despite the serious damage, Rodgers withdrew his ship only when it was nearly out of ammunition. In his official report, he noted with some irony of the Galena, “We have demonstrated that she is not shot proof.” Nonetheless, Rodgers claimed that, had troops been available to be landed, Drewry’s Bluff would have been taken and the campaign against Richmond might have worked out differently. As it transpired, the Confederate stand at Drewry’s Bluff saved the capital. Following the rebuff, Rodgers fell back downriver to City Point, where he could keep the James and Chickahominy rivers under observation. The Confederates subsequently improved their defenses on the upper James, and by 1864 they had three ironclads there as well as an elaborate system of electrically detonated mines developed by Matthew F. Maury. Spencer C. Tucker See also City Point, Virginia; Fort Monroe, Virginia; Galena, USS; Goldsborough, Louis Malesherbes; Ironclads, Confederate; Ironclads, Union; James River; James River Squadron, CSA; Jones, Catesby ap Roger; Lincoln, Abraham; Maury, Matthew Fontaine; Medal of Honor, U.S. Navy; Monitor, USS; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Richmond, Virginia; Riverine Warfare; Rodgers, John; Submarine Battery Service; Torpedoes; Tucker, John Randolph; Virginia, CSS

References Coski, John M. Capital Navy: The Men, Ships and Operations of the James River Squadron. Campbell, CA: Savas, 1996. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 7. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1898.

Dunderberg, USS The powerful U.S. Navy steam ram frigate Dunderberg was not completed in time to participate in the Civil War. Built at New York by the firm of William Webb and designed by Naval Constructor John Lenthall, the Dunderberg was laid down on October 4, 1862. The impetus for its construction was the possibility of war with Great Britain in the summer of 1862 as a result of the Trent Affair. The navy

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had under construction the large ironclads Dictator and Puritan, but these were designed to break a blockade, not for high seas cruising. Captain Joseph B. Smith, the head of the Ironclad Board, recommended that four such ships be built, but Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles decided on two. As it worked out, the other— to be built at Philadelphia by the firm of Cramp—was never laid down, and the Dunderberg was the sole ship constructed. The contract went to Webb in July 1862 because the U.S. Navy yards were then too busy with other construction. Construction of the ship was delayed by wartime shortages, strikes by workers, and the New York draft riots; Webb feared the rioters might destroy the ship, and troops had to be called upon to protect it. The ship was not launched until July 22, 1865. The Dunderberg was a large ship indeed. It displaced 7,060 tons and was 5,090 tons burden. According to one source, it was the longest wooden ship ever built. It was 377 feet, 4 inches, in overall length; 72 feet, 9 inches, in beam; and had a draft of 21 feet. Propelled by a single 21-foot-diameter screw propeller, the brigantinerigged Dunderberg was fast for its size at 15 knots. Unusual for U.S. Navy Civil War ironclads it had a casemate, similar to that of CSS Virginia. The original plan called for two turrets atop the casemate, but these were removed on appeals from Webb in order to save weight. The casemate was then extended. The decision to remove the turrets also obviated any masking of the guns by masts and rigging. The ship was designed as a broadsides ironclad. Its powerful armament was to consist of two XV-inch and eight XI-inch Dahlgren guns. When the turrets were dropped, four additional XI-inch guns were to be added to those in the casemate. The Dunderberg was the only U.S. Navy ship to mount the XV-inch gun in broadside (USS New Ironsides mounted XI-inchers). The Dunderberg had a unique double hull. The first, inner hull was of wood frame and planking. It was flat bottomed with angular bilges, sloping sides, and sharp ends. The frames were set hard against one another so that there were no openings between the timbers, and it had iron strapping to prevent hogging. The outer hull, or “casing” as Webb referred to it, was of wood and iron armor. At the bottom it was 2 feet in thickness, increasing to 5 feet at the waterline, in addition to 3.4 inches of iron, which thinned to 2.5 inches at the ends of the ship. The ship also had a ram bow of white oak logs running fore and aft that extended into the ship and protruded 32 feet forward and was 20 feet wide at the end. It was tipped with a 12-foot cast-iron beak. The casemate inclination was 60 degrees. The casemate was protected by three 1-foot layers of timber backing for 4.5 inches of iron armor. The main deck armor was also 4.5 inches and that of the casemate deck was 3.5 inches. The Dunderberg underwent two trials with the navy. On its first sea trial in September 1866 it handled well and made 10 knots with no speed run attempted. On its second, ordnance trial, it mounted two XV-inch and four XI-inch Dahlgren guns, which by all reports were worked easily.

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With the Civil War over, the Navy Department did not want the ship, despite it being one of the few ironclads to actually meet specifications and its cost of $1 million. Builder Webb was anxious to sell it to a foreign government. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton opposed such a step, believing it was worth the cost for the government to retain the ship, but Congress thought otherwise. On March 2, 1867, it restored the ship to its builder. Because the Dunderberg was then one of the most powerful warships in the world, the French were determined to keep it out of the hands of their rival Prussia, and in June 1867 the ship was transferred to France. The French Navy renamed it the Rochambeau. The French found the ship “wet,” and carried out some modifications, but before these were accomplished the ship made 15 knots in a trial. The Rochambeau took part in the French naval blockade of Prussia during the FrancoPrussian War of 1870–1871. It was sold out of French service in 1872 and broken up in 1874. Spencer C. Tucker See also Brooklyn Navy Yard; Dictator, USS; Ironclads, Union; Lenthall, John; New Ironsides, USS; Puritan, USS; Smith, Joseph; Trent Affair; Virginia, CSS; Welles, Gideon

References Canney, Donald L. The Old Steam Navy. 2 vols. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1990, 1993. Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. II, Vol. 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1921.

Dunn’s Bayou, Engagement at Event Date: May 5, 1864 Engagement between Union warships and Confederate shore batteries on the Red River on May 5, 1864. On that day, as Union sailors and soldiers worked on a dam to enable the ships in Rear Admiral David D. Porter’s squadron to pass over the falls at Alexandria, Louisiana, the small U.S. Navy light-draft gunboats Signal and Covington were convoying the Quartermaster Corps steamer Warner down the Red when they became engaged in a fierce firefight with Confederate infantry and artillery positioned at Dunn’s Bayou, below Alexandria. Only about 100 yards from the Confederate guns, all three Union ships suffered heavily. When the Warner hoisted a white flag and Lieutenant George Lord of the Covington sent a party of men to burn that vessel, the army colonel in charge begged him not to do so because he had 125 wounded aboard. Lord then agreed to allow the Warner to surrender.

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Informed that the Signal had its steam pipe cut and was disabled, Lord ordered it taken in tow and headed upriver when the rudder of his own ship became disabled. Lord then had the Signal anchor and, with the steam pipe soon cut on his own ship, ran it ashore on the opposite bank. He continued to fire on the Confederates until he had exhausted his ammunition and his boat howitzers were disabled. With many of his crew killed or wounded, Lord spiked the guns, landed his men, and set fire to his vessel. He and his crew managed to make it by land back to Alexandria. The Signal had too many wounded for its commander to follow suit, and it was captured. The Confederates then removed its guns and sank the Signal as a river obstruction. The engagement lasted for about five hours. Spencer C. Tucker See also Porter, David Dixon; Red River; Red River Campaign; Riverine Warfare

References Joiner, Gary D. One Damn Blunder from Beginning to End: The Red River Campaign of 1864. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2003. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 26. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1914.

Du Pont, Samuel Francis Birth Date: September 27, 1803 Death Date: June 23, 1865 U.S. Navy admiral and reformer. Born in Bergen Point (today Bayonne), New Jersey, on September 27, 1803, Samuel F. Du Pont attended Mount Airy College in Pennsylvania beginning in 1812. He secured a warrant as a midshipman on December 19, 1815, but it was not until February 1817 that Du Pont received orders to the ship of the line Franklin in the Mediterranean Squadron. He next served in the sloop of war Erie (1817–1818). He returned home to resume his studies at Mount Airy and then served in the frigates USS Constitution (1821) and Congress (1822), the latter in the West Indies Squadron. He was promoted to lieutenant on April 26, 1826, while serving in the ship of the line North Carolina in the Mediterranean. He then served in the schooner Porpoise. Du Pont was much interested in naval professionalism and reform and carried on an extensive correspondence toward that end with fellow officers, congressmen, and businessmen. He joined the U.S. Naval Lyceum, forerunner of the U.S. Naval Institute, and was a chief advocate for naval reform. He also attacked the navy’s organizational structure and advocated a bureau system in place of the Board of

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Navy Commissioners. Promoted to commander on October 28, 1842, during the Mexican-American War (1846–1848), Du Pont participated in operations in southern California, most notably the capture of San Diego. Du Pont was involved both in the creation of the U.S. Naval Academy (1845) and the Lighthouse Board (1852). Not known as a strict disciplinarian, he nonetheless supported the use of corporal punishment. Promoted to captain on September 14, 1855, he was instrumental in the formation of, and chaired, the Naval Efficiency Board U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Samuel Du Pont was (1855), which culled deadwood from a capable naval commander who chaired the the officer corps. Du Pont established Blockade Board at the beginning of the Civil his reputation as a reformer, but he also War and who provided the Union with had a deserved reputation as an advoseveral important naval victories early in the cate of new technology in a service that conflict. He is remembered chiefly for his failure to take Charleston, South Carolina in was often reluctant to embrace change. At the beginning of 1861 Captain Du 1863, which he believed—correctly as it turned out—could not be accomplished by Pont was a veteran with 45 years of naval forces alone. (Library of Congress) service in the navy: 21 years in assignments afloat, 8 years in shore duty, and 14 years awaiting orders in a navy with too many officers for available assignments. With the start of the Civil War, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles thought highly enough of Du Pont to name him the chair of the Commission on Conference, popularly known as the Blockade Board. This was a critical assignment because the board set Union naval strategy. Then on September 18, 1861, Du Pont took command of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. Two months later, on November 7, he commanded the largest fleet in U.S. Navy history to that point in the successful capture of Port Royal, South Carolina, which then became a major Union naval base. Du Pont then directed the Union capture of nearby Beaufort, as well as Cumberland Island, St. Marys, and Fort Pulaski in Georgia; and Amelia Island, Fernandina, and Fort Clinch in Florida. Promoted to rear admiral on July 16, 1862, and urged on by Welles and Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gustavus V. Fox, Du Pont then directed the much more difficult Union effort to capture the city of Charleston. Taking the city with naval forces alone was in fact an impossible task, especially given the limitations of the slowfiring Union monitors. Du Pont was correct in his belief that a combined operation with land forces was the only way to achieve success against the formidable

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Confederate forts guarding the city approaches. Neither Welles nor Fox understood the realities of the situation and, having furnished Du Pont with seven monitors and the ironclad New Ironsides, urged him forward. The Union assault, finally launched on April 7, 1863, was a failure. Five of the monitors involved were damaged by fire from the Confederate shore batteries, and one sank the following day. Monitor proponents charged that Du Pont had misused the ships, but Welles rejected Du Pont’s demand that his report of the action be published because it reflected too negatively on the monitors. Given the way Du Pont handled criticism of his actions and his continued pessimism regarding a new assault, Welles concluded that the admiral would have to be replaced. Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren assumed command of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron on July 6. Du Pont refused Welles’s offer of command of the Pacific Squadron, returning to his home near Wilmington, Delaware, in failing health. He then served on the board in Washington, D.C., that formed to consider the promotion of those who had rendered outstanding service during the war. Du Pont never completely recovered his health and died on June 23, 1865, during a visit to Philadelphia. Richard W. Peuser and Spencer C. Tucker See also Blockade Board; Charleston, South Carolina, Du Pont’s Attack on; Dahlgren, John Adolph Bernard; Discipline, Naval; Fox, Gustavus Vasa; Ironclads, Union; Naval Academy, United States; Naval Efficiency Board; Navy, U.S.; New Ironsides, USS; Port Royal Sound, Battle of; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Welles, Gideon

References Bauer, K. Jack. “Samuel Francis Du Pont: Aristocratic Professional.” In Captains of the Old Steam Navy, edited by James C. Bradford, 142–165. Annapolis. MD: Naval Institute Press, 1986. Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Langley, Harold D. Social Reform in the United States Navy, 1798–1862. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1967. Merrill, James M. Du Pont: The Making of an Admiral; A Biography of Samuel Francis Du Pont. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1986. Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001. Weddle, Kevin J. Lincoln’s Tragic Admiral: The Life of Samuel Francis Du Pont. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2005.

Dutch Gap, Battle of Event Date: August 13, 1864 One of several instances when ships of the Confederate James River Squadron supported army operations ashore. In the summer of 1864, Confederate battery

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Dantzler, overlooking Trent’s Reach on the James River southeast of Richmond, Virginia, posed a serious problem for Union forces. Union siege guns located on high ground along the James regularly dueled with Dantzler, and with any Confederate ships that happened to come within range, but they could not silence the battery. To bypass Dantzler, Major General Benjamin F. Butler, commanding the Union Army of the James, ordered work begun in early August on a canal to cut across the narrow (less than 200 yards wide) peninsula at Dutch Gap, where Dantzler was situated, thus permitting Union gunboats to get in behind it. Although the guns at the battery regularly shelled the Union troops working on the canal and inflicted a steady stream of casualties, Major General George E. Pickett, commanding Confederate troops manning the Howlett line, and Major General Charles Field, commanding Confederate forces across the river at Chaffin’s Bluff, both requested assistance from the navy to halt the Union work altogether. Early on August 13, 1864, Flag Officer John K. Mitchell, commander of the Confederate James River Squadron, proceeded downriver to Dutch Gap with the ironclads Virginia II (Mitchell’s flagship), Fredericksburg, and Richmond, accompanied by the gunboats Hampton, Nansemond, and Drewry. At 6:00 a.m. the Virginia II and Fredericksburg opened fire on an early Union work party in the vicinity of the canal, while the Richmond and gunboats dropped downriver to Cox’s Reach and opened fire in conjunction with Confederate shore batteries at Signal Hill and at Howlett’s House. U.S. Navy captain Melancthon Smith had anticipated some Confederate move, most likely a Confederate land attack, and had the steamer gunboats Delaware and Mackinaw at the James River barrier, where they could command Cox’s Reach. They now opened fire on the Confederate ships, directed by a lookout in the masthead of the Mackinaw. Smith also brought up the monitor Saugus. But the Confederate ships were at the extreme range of the guns, and the Union fire was for the most part ineffective. The Fredericksburg was hit three times and suffered serious damage to its smokestack, but there were no personnel casualties in the ships of the Confederate squadron. Although the Confederate ships kept up a steady shelling during a 12-hour span, the Union positions were for the most part at the extreme range or beyond that of the Confederate guns and were moreover masked by hills. The Confederate ships withdrew at 6:00 p.m. Neither side did significant damage to the other in the daylong battle, although Butler’s troops suffered an estimated 30 killed and wounded. That same day the U.S. Navy side-wheeler steamers Agawam and Hunchback came under fire in the James from two Confederate shore batteries at Four Mile Creek and to the north. The Agawam alone expended 228 rounds of return fire. That ship suffered three killed and four wounded. Captain Smith sent the Saugus to assist in dislodging the Confederate battery at Four Mills Creek.

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On January 1, 1865, Union engineers used 12,000 pounds of powder to blow open the last segment of the Dutch Gap Canal. Unfortunately for the Union effort, the blast collapsed dirt back into the canal, which was not finished during the war. Spencer C. Tucker See also Ironclads, Confederate; Ironclads, Union; James River; James River Squadron, CSA; Mitchell, John Kirkwood; Richmond, CSS; Richmond, Virginia; Riverine Warfare; Trent’s Reach, Battle of

References Coski, John M. Capital Navy: The Men, Ships and Operations of the James River Squadron. Campbell, CA: Savas, 1996. Melton, Maurice. The Confederate Ironclads. New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1968. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 10. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1900. U.S. Navy Department, Naval History Division. Civil War Naval Chronology, 1861– 1865. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971.


E Eads, James Buchanan Birth Date: May 23, 1820 Death Date: March 8, 1887 Maritime and naval engineer who designed river ironclads used by the North in the Civil War. James B. Eads was born in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, on May 23, 1820. He received very little formal education and gained most of his knowledge on his own through reading books on mechanics. He first worked for a dry goods merchant in St. Louis and then purchased a riverboat business. In 1842 Eads became part owner of a river salvage company. The salvage vessels he designed were powerful twin-hulled, steam-driven vessels known as submarines. They were equipped to recover the iron and lead from wrecks, and even to pump out water and raise wrecks from the bottom. By 1856 Eads had become wealthy and operated ten salvage vessels along the Mississippi and other western rivers. Eads, a staunch Unionist, believed that civil war between North and South would necessarily result in a battle for control of the Mississippi River. He thought that the best means of combating Confederate forts on the Mississippi would be ironclad gunboats. Such warships would be of shallowdraft, be protected by armor plate, and mount heavy guns. In late April 1861 Eads wrote U.S. secretary of the navy Gideon Welles urging that Cairo, Illinois, be made the main base for a Union gunboat operation to command the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, and that steamers used to pull snags from the river be converted into floating batteries. Three ships were Engineer James Buchanan Eads, part-owner indeed converted into “timberclads”: of a river salvage company and a staunch the Tyler, Lexington, and Conestoga. Unionist, designed and built a number of Eads then traveled to Washington, river ironclads for the U.S. Navy during the D.C., and met with Welles and Chief Civil War. (Library of Congress) 169

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Clerk of the Navy Gustavus V. Fox. He also attended a cabinet meeting in which he spelled out his ideas for gunboats on the western waters. Welles referred Eads’s suggestions to the War Department, and in August 1861 Eads signed a contract with the army to build seven gunboats from scratch. The lowest bidder, he also promised to deliver them in 60 days. Eads built the ironclads at shipyards in Carondelet, Missouri, near Saint Louis, and in Mound City, Illinois, near Cairo. These gunboats were the Cairo- or City-class ships, all named for towns on the western waters. They were the first vessels in the Western Hemisphere built specifically as ironclads. They were the Cairo, Carondelet, Cincinnati, Louisville, Mound City, Pittsburg, and St. Louis. They were often referred to as “Pook Turtles,” both for naval constructor Samuel R. Pook and for the rectangular casemates and sloped sides that gave them a turtlelike appearance. In January 1862 each ironclad mounted 13 heavy guns. The Cairo-class ironclads enabled Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote to capture Fort Henry on the Tennessee River on February 6, 1862, but the ships were rebuffed in an assault at Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River on February 14. Later they performed useful service in the battles along the Mississippi River, including Island Number 10, Fort Pillow, Memphis, and Vicksburg. Eads also converted the former Submarine No. 7 into the Benton, the most powerful of the river gunboats, and he designed highly effective monitors. In early 1862 he secured a government contract to design and build three single-turreted monitors. The first to enter service were the Neosho and Osage. They were unique in being propelled by stern wheels. They mounted two XI-inch Dahlgren guns. The Ozark of February 1864 combined a single turret mounting two XI-inch Dahlgrens and a casemate with one X-inch and three IX-inch Dahlgrens. Eads also built four double-turreted river monitors. Known as the Milwaukee-class, they were the Chickasaw, Kickapoo, Milwaukee, and Winnebago. He designed one turret, and John Ericsson designed the other. The forward-mounted Eads turret turned on a ball-bearing race and used steam power. The four ships were commissioned in the spring and summer of 1864. Each mounted four XI-inch Dahlgren guns. Following the war, Eads turned his attention to other projects. In 1867 he began construction of a steel railroad and pedestrian bridge spanning the Mississippi River at Saint Louis. Construction was completed in 1874. Later, Eads had charge of dredging a new navigation channel around New Orleans. In recognition of his engineering accomplishments, Eads was awarded the Albert Medal by the British Society of the Arts in 1884. Eads died suddenly on March 8, 1887, in Nassau, Bahamas. Theresa Storey and Spencer C. Tucker See also Benton, USS; Cairo, USS; Cairo-Class River Ironclads; Cairo Naval Station; Carondelet, USS; Cincinnati, USS; Conestoga, USS; Dahlgren Guns; Ericsson, John; Foote, Andrew Hull; Fort Donelson, Battle of; Fort Henry, Battle of; Fort Pillow, Tennessee; Fox,

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Gustavus Vasa; Ironclads, Union; Island Number 10, Battle of; Lexington, USS; Memphis, First Battle of; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Mound City, USS; Navy, U.S.; Neosho and Osage, USS; Ohio River; Pittsburg, USS; Plum Point Bend, Battle of; Riverine Warfare; Timberclads; Tyler, USS; Welles, Gideon

References Dorsey, Florence. Road to the Sea: The Story of James B. Eads and the Mississippi River. New York: Rinehart, 1947. Ormont, Arthur. James Buchanan Eads: The Man Who Mastered the Mississippi. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1970. Tucker, Spencer C. Andrew Foote: Civil War Admiral on Western Waters. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000.

Eagle, Henry Birth Date: April 7, 1801 Death Date: November 26, 1882 U.S. Navy officer. Born in New York City on April 7, 1801, Henry Eagle secured a midshipman’s warrant on January 1, 1818. He was promoted to lieutenant on March 3, 1827; to commander on June 4, 1844; and to captain on September 14, 1855. At the beginning of 1861, Eagle had been in the navy for 43 years: 17 years in sea service, 8 years in assignments ashore, and 17 years awaiting orders in a navy with too many officers. In early May 1861 Eagle assumed command of the steamer Monticello (shortly thereafter renamed the Star) in the Atlantic Blockading Squadron, stationed at the mouth of the York River, Virginia. Then assigned to the James and Elizabeth rivers, Eagle carried out one of the first naval attacks of the war, firing on a Confederate battery at Sewell’s Point, Virginia, on May 18, 1861. Unable to join the blockade off Wilmington, North Carolina, because his ship was not seaworthy, Eagle took his ship to the Washington Navy Yard for repairs and was assigned command of the sailing frigate Santee, then at the Portsmouth Navy Yard. Ordered on June 8, 1861, to join the Gulf Blockading Squadron, Eagle took up station off Galveston, Texas. In June 1862, the Santee was ordered to Boston for repairs. On July 16, 1862, Eagle was promoted to commodore. Relieved from command at sea that fall, Eagle was placed on the retired list effective January 1, 1863. He was subsequently appointed prize commissioner at New York, which position he held into 1865. He was then assigned as a lighthouse inspector during 1865–1866. Eagle died in New York City on November 26, 1882. Spencer C. Tucker See also Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Galveston, Texas; Gulf Blockading Squadron; James River; Prize Cases; Portsmouth Navy Yard; Sewell’s Point, Virginia, U.S. Navy Shelling of; Washington Navy Yard

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References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 4. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1896.

East Gulf Blockading Squadron One of two U.S. Navy blockading squadrons along the Gulf Coast beginning in February 1862. At the beginning of the Civil War, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles established the Gulf Blockading Squadron to cover the Confederate coastline from Key West, Florida, to Brownsville, Texas. In late 1861 the Navy Department decided to split the Gulf Blockading Squadron into two separate squadrons. The change went into effect formally on February 20, 1862, when the Gulf Squadron was split into an East Gulf Blockading Squadron and a West Coast Blockading Squadron. Captain William McKean, who had been commanding the Gulf Blockading Squadron, then took command of the eastern squadron, with responsibility from Key West to Pensacola, Florida. Meanwhile, Captain David G. Farragut assumed command of the western squadron, which covered the coast from Pensacola to the Rio Grande River. The East Gulf Blockading Squadron continued to be based at Key West, Florida. On November 4, 1862, Captain Theodorus Bailey replaced the ailing McKean in command of the squadron. Under Bailey’s energetic leadership, ships of the squadron aggressively patrolled the Florida coast. Over the next year, of 52 vessels attempting to run the blockade, only 7 succeeded. The blockaders captured nearly 100 ships during a six-month span. Bailey’s warships also attacked vessels at dockside taking on or offloading cargo, and they raided up bays and rivers along the coast, destroying Confederate saltworks. Necessary in the curing and preservation of meats, salt was a critical commodity for the Confederacy, and many of these works were situated in western Florida. Such activities by the squadron continued under Bailey’s successors. McKean served until January 4, 1862, when Flag Officer James L. Lardner replaced him. Acting Rear Admiral Theodorus Bailey replaced Lardner on December 9, 1862. Bailey was followed on August 7, 1864, by Captain Theodore P. Greene (commander pro tem), who was followed by Acting Rear Admiral Cornelius K. Stribling on October 14, 1864. Spencer C. Tucker

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See also Anaconda Strategy; Bailey, Theodorus; Blockade Board; Blockade of the Confederacy; Blockade-Runners; Farragut, David Glasgow; Gulf Blockading Squadron; Lardner, James Lawrence; McKean, William Wister; Pensacola Navy Yard; Strategy, Union Naval; Stribling, Cornelius Kincheloe; Welles, Gideon; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Porter, David Dixon. The Naval History of the Civil War. 1886; reprint, New York: Dover, 1998. Soley, James Russell. The Navy in the Civil War, Vol. 1, The Blockade and the Cruisers. New York: Scribner, 1983. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Eastport, USS The largest ironclad in the U.S. Navy Mississippi Squadron. While still unfinished by the Confederates, the vessel was captured, along with materials sufficient to complete it, by Union lieutenant commander Seth Ledyard Phelps at Cerro Gordo, Tennessee, on February 7, 1862, during his expedition up the Tennessee River. The Eastport was completed at Mound City, Illinois, and commissioned on January 9, 1863. The Eastport was a side-wheeler with two engines. It displaced 570 tons and was 280 feet in length, with a beam of 43 feet or 32 feet, and a draft of 6 feet, 3 inches. Its initial armament was six IX-inch Dahlgren smoothbores and two 6.4inch (80-pounder) Parrott rifles. The Eastport was damaged by grounding on several occasions, including on February 2, 1863, in the Mississippi River, after which it was returned to Cairo, Illinois, for repairs. It was also grounded on, but removed from, a sandbar at the mouth of the Red River at the start of the Red River Expedition on March 12, 1864. The Eastport struck a torpedo (mine) in the Red on April 15. When efforts to tow the ship back down that river proved unsuccessful because of repeated groundings, Rear Admiral David D. Porter ordered the Eastport destroyed. It was blown up with a ton of powder on April 26, 1864. Gary D. Joiner See also Cairo Naval Station; Ironclads, Union; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Phelps, Seth Ledyard; Phelps’s Raid; Porter, David Dixon; Red River; Red River Campaign; Riverine Warfare; Torpedoes

References Johnson, Ludwell H. Red River Campaign: Politics & Cotton in the Civil War. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1993. Joiner, Gary D. Mr. Lincoln’s Brown Water Navy: The Mississippi Squadron. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007.

174 |â•‡ Elizabeth City, Battle of Joiner, Gary D. One Damn Blunder from Beginning to End: The Red River Campaign of 1864. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2003. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Elizabeth City, Battle of Event Date: February 10, 1862 Following the capture of Roanoke Island by Union forces on February 8, 1862, Commander Stephen C. Rowan led 13 Union gunboats with additional marines up the Pasquotank River to pursue the remaining Confederate gunboats early on the morning of February 10. This move caught Flag Officer William F. Lynch, commanding Confederate naval units on Albemarle Sound, by surprise. The Forrest (one gun) was at Elizabeth City undergoing repairs, and Lynch had sent the Raleigh (two guns) up the Dismal Swamp Canal toward Norfolk to speed the delivery of ammunition from that place to the squadron. Learning that U.S. marines were going ashore near Cobb’s Point, and with the shore battery there the only means of preventing the Union ships from reaching his gunboats, Lynch went to Cobb’s Point to organize the defense. Finding only a half dozen militiamen present, he ordered most of the crew of the Beaufort (one gun) ashore to assist. The militia at the fort soon ran away, and the remaining Confederates could only man two of the fort’s 32-pounders. After a spirited hour-long engagement, Rowan’s ships passed the shore battery and closed in on the gunboats, sinking the Sea Bird (two guns) and making its crew prisoners, and also boarding and capturing the Ellis (armament unknown). The crew of the steamer Fanny (two guns) ran its vessel ashore and set it on fire, and the crew of the schooner Black Warrior (two guns) also fired its gunboat. Although Union seamen sought to extinguish the flames, neither vessel could be saved. The Union gunboats now outflanked the fort, the guns of which could not be brought to bear. Seeing this, Lynch ordered the guns there spiked and his men to withdraw. He also ordered the Forrest at Elizabeth City, North Carolina, fired to prevent its capture. The Beaufort, Raleigh, and Appomattox (one gun) were the only ships in the squadron to escape. The battle cost Lynch four men killed and six wounded. Driven up the Dismal Swamp Canal, the Beaufort and Raleigh joined the ironclad CSS Virginia at Norfolk. The Appomattox, commanded by Lieutenant Charles C. Simms, proved too wide for the canal lock above Elizabeth City, however, and Lynch ordered it and the lock blown up with explosives for fear that the Union forces would mount a pursuit. In the battle, the men of the Union screw-steamer gunboat Valley City experienced a close call. A Confederate shell struck the ship and passed through its magazine, exploding in a locker containing pyrotechnics. The Valley City’s captain,

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Lieutenant Commander James C. Chaplain, went to the magazine to help fight the fire and there discovered the quarter gunner, John Davis, seated on an open barrel of powder as the only means of keeping the fire from reaching it. At the same time Davis was passing powder to other seamen so that the upper-deck gun division could return fire. For this brave action, which likely saved his ship, Davis received the Medal of Honor in April 1863. Following the battle, Rowan sent marines ashore to occupy both Elizabeth City and Edenton and to obstruct Albemarle Sound and the Chesapeake Canal. Others of his men destroyed Confederate property and brought off ammunition, ordnance, and other useful stores. Spencer C. Tucker See also Albemarle Sound; Lynch, William Francis; Medal of Honor, U.S. Navy; Mosquito Fleet; Norfolk Navy Yard; Riverine Warfare; Roanoke Island, North Carolina, Union Capture of; Rowan, Stephen Clegg; Simms, Charles Carroll; Virginia, CSS


Ellet, Alfred Washington Birth Date: October 11, 1820 Death Date: January 9, 1895 U.S. Army officer. Alfred Washington Ellet was born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, on October 11, 1820. He studied engineering, became a civil engineer, and traveled widely, working on various projects. In August 1861 he was commissioned a captain in the U.S. Army and fought at the Battle of Pea Ridge (March 7–8, 1862). His brother Colonel Charles Ellet Jr. received permission from President Abraham Lincoln to create a hybrid military unit that became the U.S. Ram Fleet. It employed reinforced wooden river steamers as rams against Confederate gunboats in the Mississippi River. The Ram Fleet played an important role in the Union victory in the Battle of Memphis on June 3, 1862, in which Charles Ellet received a wound; he died on June 21, 1862. Following his brother’s death, Alfred Ellet, then a lieutenant colonel, assumed command and was promoted to colonel. He was commissioned a brigadier general on November 1, 1862, and the unit’s name was changed from the Ram Fleet to the Mississippi Marine Brigade. Intended as an amphibious strike force, it numbered six companies of infantry and four of cavalry, as well as a battery of mobile artillery, all supported by 10 armed steamboat transports and 6 auxiliary steamers. At

176 |â•‡ Ellet, Charles, Jr.

full strength the brigade numbered more than 1,000 officers and men and 500 civilians. As an army command within the Mississippi Squadron, the Marine Brigade represented one of the first experiments in joint operations by the U.S. military. Rear Admiral David D. Porter, who had initially supported its creation, soon grew disillusioned with the brigade and its reckless undisciplined behavior. Although Ellet had nominal command, he was to report to Porter. The brigade subsequently took part in numerous small actions in Arkansas and Louisiana. Porter complained, however, that Ellet “was adverse to harmonious action” and that he disregarded orders. Porter finally secured transfer of the brigade’s ships to his command, and in August 1864 the Marine Brigade itself was disbanded. Posted to New Orleans, Ellet resigned from the service in December 1864. He then settled in Kansas, where he once more became a civil engineer and worked in railroad development. Ellet died on January 9, 1895, in El Dorado, Kansas. Gary D. Joiner See also Amphibious Warfare; Davis, Charles Henry; Ellet, Charles, Jr.; Fort Pillow, Tennessee; Memphis, First Battle of; Mississippi Marine Brigade; Mississippi River; Mississippi River Defense Fleet; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Plum Point Bend, Battle of; Porter, David Dixon; Queen of the West, USS; Ram Fleet, U.S.; Riverine Warfare

References Crandall, Warren D., and Isaac D. Newel. History of the Ram Fleet and the Mississippi Marine Brigade in the War for the Union on the Mississippi and Its Tributaries: The Story of the Ellets and Their Men. St. Louis: Buschart Bros., 1907. Hearn, Chester G. Ellet’s Brigade: The Strangest Outfit of All. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006. Joiner, Gary D. Mr. Lincoln’s Brown Water Navy: The Mississippi Squadron. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007. Shea, William L., and Terrence J. Winschel. Vicksburg Is the Key: The Struggle for the Mississippi River. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Ellet, Charles, Jr. Birth Date: January 1, 1810 Death Date: June 21, 1862 Civil engineer and U.S. Army colonel. Charles Ellet was born on January 1, 1810, in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. From childhood, Ellet excelled in mathematics and languages, and in 1827 he left home to work as a canal surveyor. To expand his technical knowledge, he attended classes at the École des Ponts et Chaussées, the prestigious French civil engineering school in Paris, in 1830. While in France, he observed the construction of wire suspension bridges.

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Upon returning to the United States, Ellet offered revolutionary proposals for the construction of wire suspension bridges that were routinely dismissed because of his youth. In 1835 Benjamin Wright, the father of American civil engineering, appointed Ellet chief engineer of the James River and Kanawha Canal Company in Lynchburg, Virginia. In 1842 Ellet built the first wire suspension bridge in the United States, which spanned the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1849 he completed a 1,010-foot-long wire suspension bridge over the Ohio River between Wheeling, West Virginia, and Belmont, Ohio. When completed, it was the longest wire suspension bridge in the world. From 1850 to 1853 Ellet was chief engineer of the Virginia Central Railroad. In 1855 he attempted without success to convince the U.S. Navy to build a fleet of steam battering rams. At the beginning of the Civil War, with the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in 1861, Ellet offered his services to the U.S. Navy. Although he was knowledgeable of the transportation network in Virginia and its importance to the Confederacy, Union Army major general George B. McClellan, who became Union Army general in chief, largely ignored Ellet’s overtures. Ellet soon was a vocal critic of McClellan’s lack of offensive spirit. Ellet’s pamphlet, “The Army of the Potomac and its Mismanagement” (1861), was a scathing indictment of McClellan’s conduct of the war. Following the Confederate ironclad Virginia’s ramming and sinking of the U.S. Navy sloop Cumberland in Hampton Roads on March 8, 1862, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton realized the potential power of steam battering rams. Ironically, the Virginia had been built to Ellet’s specifications for a steam battering ram. Stanton now authorized Ellet to oversee the conversion of nine steamboats, procured at Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, into rams. Stanton commissioned Ellet a colonel and placed him in charge of the fleet. The transformation of the ships included reinforcing their hulls with additional timbers and filling their bows with timber to enable them to withstand the shock of ramming. The rams initially carried no ordnance, although a number of sharpshooters were assigned to each. Ellet had command of the rams, although for the most part they operated under navy orders, an arrangement that pleased neither party. Ellet wanted an immediate blow against Fort Pillow, but Mississippi Flotilla commander Flag Officer Charles H. Davis resisted. On June 4, however, the Confederates abandoned Fort Pillow, and the next day Davis’s flotilla, reinforced by Ellet’s rams, moved south past Fort Pillow to attack the Confederates at Memphis. Early in the ensuing naval battle of Memphis on June 6, Ellet, commanding the rams from the Queen of the West, signaled to them to pass through the Union ironclads and attack the Confederate ships. Only the Monarch under his brother, Lieutenant Colonel Alfred Ellet, responded. These two rams then made for the advancing Confederate vessels. In the ensuing fight, the Queen of the West rammed and sank one Confederate ship before being rammed in turn, but Ellet was able to ground his ship on the Arkansas shore.

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The battle ended in a complete Union victory, with the Union side suffering only four casualties and one badly damaged ram. Ellet, however, was among the wounded, hit in the knee by a bullet. The wound was not thought to be life threatening, but Ellet died on June 21, 1862, at Cairo, Illinois, probably of complications from dysentery and the measles. Michael R. Hall and Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Davis, Charles Henry; Ellet, Alfred Washington; Fort Pillow, Tennessee; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Memphis, First Battle of; Mississippi Marine Brigade; Mississippi River; Mississippi River Defense Fleet; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Porter, David Dixon; Queen of the West, USS; Ram Fleet, U.S.; Riverine Warfare; Virginia, CSS

References Hearn, Chester G. Ellet’s Brigade: The Strangest Outfit of All. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006. Lewis, Gene D. Charles Ellet, Jr.: The Engineer as Industrialist, 1810–1862. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1968. Tucker, Spencer C. Andrew Foote: Civil War Admiral on Western Waters. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000.

Enchantress Affair Start Date: 1861 End Date: 1862 Accusations of piracy represented the basis of the Enchantress Affair, a diplomatic tug-of-war between the Abraham Lincoln administration and Confederate president Jefferson Davis. The case, which involved the U.S. merchant ship Enchantress, aroused public sentiment on both sides of the war. Soon after the beginning of the war, on July 6, 1861, the Confederate privateer Jeff Davis captured the Enchantress off the coast of Delaware, and a prize crew led by Walter W. Smith took on the task of bringing in the merchant ship with its estimated $13,000 worth of cargo. However, on July 22 the U.S. Navy screw-steam conversion Albatross recaptured the Enchantress off the coast of Hatteras Island, North Carolina. With the U.S. government refusing to accept the captured privateers as prisoners of war, the 14 members of the prize crew were sent to a Philadelphia prison, with a trial on charges of piracy set for October 22, 1861. During the trial, 4 crew members from the Enchantress, along with 10 crew members from another captured ship, the Petrel, received death sentences. While awaiting execution, all 14 were imprisoned in Philadelphia. The outcome of the trial prompted immediate outrage in the South. During the trial, defense attorney Nathaniel Harrison was unable to introduce documents indicating that the Confederacy was a legitimate government, and as a result, Harrison

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requested intervention from Jefferson Davis after the trial ended. Davis responded to the outcome by saying that he would execute one Union officer currently held as a prisoner of war for each member of the Enchantress and Petrel put to death by the U.S. government. Acting Confederate secretary of war Judah Benjamin ordered Brigadier General John H. Winder in Richmond to select by lot 14 senior ranking Union officers to be treated as criminals. The first selected officer would be confined to a cell appropriate for “convicted felons”; the 13 additional officers would be confined in cells reserved for prisoners accused of “infamous crimes.” On November 10 Brigadier General Winder visited Libby Prison; names of the highest-ranking officers were written on paper slips and drawn out of a can. The first name drawn, that of Colonel Michael Corcoran, would be the prisoner treated as a convicted felon, and the names of the 13 others, also drawn in the same manner, would receive treatment similar to criminals. In the months after the trial, the case received considerable coverage in the press in both the North and South, and family members and friends beseeched both governments with requests for mercy. By January 1862 the U.S. government realized that there was little public support for treating captured privateers as pirates or criminals; demonstrations for the release of the prisoners, particularly Michael Corcoran, helped to sway opinion, and on February 15, 1862, Washington reclassified the convicted privateers as prisoners of war. Eventually all prisoners, with the exception of Captain Hugh McQuaide, who died of war-related injuries while in prison, were exchanged or released. The Enchantress Affair and the U.S. government’s decision to accept the privateers as prisoners of war, rather than criminals, represented a small victory for the Confederate government. Jennifer Harrison See also Davis, Jefferson Finis; Letters of Marque and Reprisal; Lincoln, Abraham; Privateers

References Boyle, Frank A. A Party of Mad Fellows: The Story of the Irish Regiments in the Army of the Potomac. Dayton, OH: Morningside Press, 1996. Bruce, Susannah U. The Harp and the Eagle: Irish-American Volunteers and the Union Army, 1861–1865. New York: New York University Press, 2006. Speer, Lonnie R. Wars of Vengeance: Acts of Retaliation against Civil War POWs. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2002.

Engle, Frederick Birth Date: October 23, 1799 Death Date: February 12, 1868 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, on October 23, 1799, Frederick Engle received a midshipman’s warrant on December 6, 1814. He was

180 |â•‡ Ericsson, John

promoted to lieutenant on January 13, 1825; to commander on September 8, 1841; and to captain on September 14, 1855. During the Mexican-American War (1846– 1848), Engle commanded the steam sloop Princeton. At the beginning of 1861 Engle had been in the navy for 46 years: 19 years in service at sea, 12 years in assignments ashore, and 13 years awaiting orders in a navy that had too many officers. Ordered to China to command the East India Squadron, Captain Engle brought the squadron home, and on December 21, 1861, he was placed on the retired list by reason of age. Assigned to board duty, he became the governor of the Naval Asylum at Philadelphia in September 1862, serving in that capacity until 1866. He was advanced to commodore on the retired list effective July 16, 1862. In 1867 Engle was promoted to rear admiral on the retired list with date effective July 15, 1866. Engle died in Philadelphia on February 12, 1868. Spencer C. Tucker See also Philadelphia Naval Asylum

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001. Tucker, Spencer C. Andrew Foote: Civil War Admiral on Western Waters. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000.

Ericsson, John Birth Date: July 31, 1803 Death Date: March 8, 1889 Engineer, inventor, and naval architect. Born in Langbanshyttan, Sweden, on July 31, 1803, John Ericsson joined the Swedish army in 1817 as a lieutenant of topographical engineers, but he also displayed a great capacity for mechanical engineering. In 1827 Ericsson immigrated to England to study steam propulsion and there designed many novel devices. Foremost among these was a screw propeller. This brought him to the attention of U.S. Navy captain Robert F. Stockton, then in England, who convinced Ericsson to relocate to the United States. Stockton then used his political influence to arrange for Ericsson to design the machinery for the Princeton, the world’s first steam-driven screw warship. The new ship incorporated such novel ideas as placement of engines below the waterline to shield them from enemy gunfire. The Princeton performed as expected, but during public demonstrations on the Potomac River in 1844, a cannon designed by Stockton exploded, killing several government officials. Ericsson was exonerated,

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but he vowed never to do work for the navy again and spent the next 15 years designing commercial steamships. It took the outbreak of the Civil War in April 1861 for Ericsson to deal with the U.S. Navy Department again. When word was received that the Confederates had raised the scuttled steam U.S. Navy frigate Merrimack at Norfolk and were rebuilding it as an ironclad, the U.S. Navy called for ironclads of its own. David Bushnell, designer of the ironclad Galena, convinced Ericsson to submit a design he had made for a revolutionary ship. This experimental ironclad, christened the Monitor, featured many innovative ideas and ushered in a new age of warfare. It sported a low, long hull, was completely armored, and had a single turret that rotated on its axis. Constructed in only 100 days, the Monitor Swedish-born engineer John Ericsson is was rushed into combat on March 9, credited as the co-developer of the screw propeller. He designed the machinery for the 1862, when it fought the Virginia to a U.S. Navy steam sloop Princeton in 1844, but draw. This engagement ensured pro- Ericsson is best known for the design and tection for the Union blockaders and construction of the revolutionary ironclad the eventual fall of Norfolk. Ericsson Monitor in 1862. Following its success, he spent the balance of the war designing designed other turreted ironclads for the and building new classes of monitors. U.S. Navy. (Library of Congress) As a patriotic gesture, he made his unpatented plans available to other engineers to facilitate immediate construction. Ericsson spent the next two decades refining his ideas on steam propulsion and developing torpedo boats. He died in New York City on March 8, 1889, the most significant naval engineer of the 19th century. John C. Fredriksen See also Galena, USS; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Ironclads, Confederate; Ironclads, Union; Monitor, USS; Peacemaker, Explosion of; Torpedoes; Virginia, CSS

References Canney, Donald L. The Old Steam Navy. 2 vols. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1990, 1993. De Kay, James Tertius. Monitor. New York: Walker, 1997.

182 |â•‡ Essex, USS Eliasson, Erik. Captain John Ericsson in New York. New York: John Ericsson Society, 1988. Mindell, David A. War, Technology, and Experience aboard the USS Monitor. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.

Essex, USS USS Essex was originally the river steamer New Era, which the U.S. Army acquired in September 1861 and converted to a timberclad. Commissioned in October 1861, this center-wheel steamer was armored, its hull was lengthened, and it was renamed the Essex that December. In the Battle of Fort Henry (February 6, 1862), the Essex took a direct hit in a boiler, and the explosion killed or wounded 32, including its captain, Commander William D. Porter, who was badly scalded. During repairs it underwent further modification. When rebuilt, the Essex displaced 1,000 tons and had a length of 198 feet, 6 inches; a beam of 58 feet; and a draft of 6 feet, 9 inches. It was capable of 5.5 knots and had a crew complement of 134. The Essex attacked the Confederate ironclad Arkansas at Vicksburg, Mississippi, on July 22, 1862, and again at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on August 5, 1862. It took part in the bombardment of Port Hudson, Louisiana (December 13, 1862), the occupation of Baton Rouge (December 17, 1862), and the bombardment of Whitehall Point, Louisiana (July 10, 1863). After participating in the Red River Campaign (March 10–May 22, 1864), the Essex was decommissioned on July 20, 1865. Sold on November 29, it became the merchantman New Era but was scrapped in December 1870. William E. Whyte III See also Arkansas, CSS; Arkansas, CSS, Union Attempts to Destroy; Baton Rouge, Battle of; Foote, Andrew Hull; Fort Henry, Battle of; Ironclads, Union; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Porter, William David; Port Hudson, Louisiana, Action at; Red River; Red River Campaign; Riverine Warfare; Timberclads; Vicksburg Campaign

References Joiner, Gary D. Mr. Lincoln’s Brown Water Navy: The Mississippi Squadron. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007. Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. Tucker, Spencer C. Andrew Foote: Civil War Admiral on Western Waters. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000.

F Farragut, David Glasgow Birth Date: July 5, 1801 Death Date: August 14, 1870 U.S. Navy admiral. Born at Campbell’s Station, Tennessee, on July 5, 1801, the son of a naval officer, James (later David) Farragut moved to New Orleans with his family while an infant. There, Commodore David D. Porter became his guardian, and when Farragut was 9 years old, Porter secured an appointment for him as a midshipman in the navy on December 17, 1810. Farragut served under Porter aboard the frigate Essex during the War of 1812 and at age 12 was a prize master. Captured in the sanguinary battle with HMS Phoebe and Cherub on March 28, 1814, he was taken prisoner. Lauded by Porter for his conduct in the battle, Farragut in turn honored Porter by changing his name from James to David. Farragut’s naval assignments following the war included postings to the Mediterranean and service in the West Indies in 1822 as part of Porter’s squadron to eradicate piracy. He was promoted to lieutenant on January 13, 1825; to commander on September 8, 1841; and to captain on September 14, 1855. At the beginning of 1861, Farragut had 50 years service in the navy: 20 years of sea service, 18 years in assignments ashore, and 11 years An aggressive and resourceful commander, awaiting orders in a navy with too U.S. Navy Flag Officer David G. Farragut led the attack on the Mississippi River forts that many officers for available billets. secured New Orleans in April 1862 and also Farragut was a resident of Norcommanded Union naval forces in the folk, Virginia, when that state voted August 1864 Battle of Mobile Bay. In 1866 to secede from the United States. A he became the nation’s first full admiral. staunch Unionist, Farragut moved to (Library of Congress) 183

184 |â•‡ Farragut, David Glasgow

the North, where his loyalty was suspect because of his Southern origins. He was at first placed in administrative duty, but in December 1861 Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles appointed Farragut to command the West Gulf Blockading Squadron and ordered him to capture New Orleans. It took Farragut several months to put together a squadron, but on April 24, 1862, the squadron ran past the forts at the mouth of the Mississippi, swept aside a small Confederate squadron, and took New Orleans the next day. On July 16, 1862, Farragut was one of four officers promoted to the new rank of rear admiral, ranking first in seniority in the navy. During the summer of 1862 Farragut operated on the Mississippi, but his attempts against Vicksburg failed. He then tightened the blockade on the Gulf, and ordered to operate against Mobile, he ran into Mobile Bay on August 5, 1864, defeating the Confederate squadron there, including the powerful Confederate ram Tennessee. This victory brought him promotion to vice admiral that December 31. Poor health prevented Farragut from taking part in the Fort Fisher campaign, but he recovered in time to participate in combat along the James River at the end of the war. Aggressive and resourceful, Farragut was a model commander and undoubtedly the preeminent U.S. Navy officer of the war. On July 26, 1866, Farragut was promoted to full admiral. During 1867–1868 he commanded the European Squadron. Farragut died while visiting the navy yard at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on August 14, 1870. Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Buchanan, Franklin; Fort Fisher Campaign; Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s Run Past; James River; Mississippi River; Mobile Bay; Mobile Bay, Battle of; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; Porter, David Dixon; Portsmouth Navy Yard; Riverine Warfare; Tennessee, CSS; Vicksburg, Mississippi, West Gulf Squadron Passage of; Vicksburg Campaign; Welles, Gideon; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Beach, Edward L. “David Glasgow Farragut: Deliberate Planner, Impetuous Fighter.” In The Great Admirals: Command at Sea, 1587–1945, edited by Jack Sweetman, 254–277. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997. Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Duffy, James P. Lincoln’s Admiral: The Civil War Campaigns of David Farragut. New York: Wiley, 1997. Still, William N., Jr. “David Glasgow Farragut: The Nation’s Nelson.” In Captains of the Old Steam Navy: Makers of the American Naval Tradition, 1840–1880, edited by James C. Bradford, 166–193. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1986. Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001.

Farrand, Ebenezerâ•‡ | 185

Farrand, Ebenezer Birth Date: 1803 Death Date: 1873 Confederate Navy officer. Born in New York in 1803, Ebenezer Farrand (known to his friends as “Eben”) entered the U.S. Navy on a midshipman’s warrant on March 4, 1823. He was promoted to passed midshipman on March 23, 1829, and to lieutenant on March 3, 1831. His first command was the schooner Ariel in 1831. His subsequent assignments at sea included service aboard the sloop Falmouth in 1851. He was promoted to commander on July 10, 1854. Despite being born in the North, Farrand espoused the Confederate cause and resigned his commission on January 21, 1861. At the time he was serving as executive officer of the Pensacola Navy Yard in Florida, and his initial Confederate assignment was as commandant of that yard following its surrender by Captain James Armstrong. Farrand was officially appointed a commander in the Confederate Navy on June 6, 1861, with date of rank from March 26, 1861, but on March 17 Farrand had been among three Confederate Navy officers ordered to New Orleans to negotiate for the construction of gunboats. On April 18 Farrand was appointed chief of the Light House Bureau, replacing Raphael Semmes. He was then assigned to special service having to do with ship construction, and in 1862 he was stationed in that capacity at Savannah, Georgia. Farrand briefly commanded the Rocketts Yard on the James River just below Richmond, but with Union naval forces threatening an advance up the James against the Confederate capital, Farrand assumed command of Confederate defenses at Drewry’s Bluff on that river. Farrand strengthened the defenses by ordering heavy guns offloaded from ships and installing six of them in a land position down the river from the fort. This new battery was manned by the officers and men of the former CSS Virginia under Lieutenant Catesby ap Roger Jones. Farrand also ordered the sinking in the river of the steamer Jamestown, once its guns had been removed, to serve as an obstruction. Farrand commanded Confederate naval and land forces in the Battle of Drewry’s Bluff, which was fought against a Union squadron centered on the U.S. Navy ironclad Galena under Commander John Rodgers on May 15, 1862. For his success in turning back the Union naval forces, Farrand received the Thanks of the Confederate Congress, voted on September 16. Farrand was not at Drewry’s Bluff long, for on the very day of the battle, orders had been issued for him to turn over the command there to Captain Sidney Smith Lee, General Robert E. Lee’s brother. Farrand then took charge of Confederate shipbuilding at Selma, Alabama. On February 8, 1863, he reported the successful launching at the Selma yard of the Confederate ironclads Tuscaloosa and Huntsville, both of which were then moved to Mobile. Farrand also supervised construction of the powerful Confederate ironclad Tennessee (Tennessee II).

186 |â•‡ Farrand, Ebenezer

Farrand was promoted to captain on January 7, 1864, with date of rank from May 13, 1863. After the launching of four ironclads at Selma, Farrand followed them to Mobile, where he commanded Confederate naval forces during 1863– 1865. Farrand initiated satellite naval construction yards up the Tombigbee River at McIntosh Bluffs, where in the spring of 1864 naval constructor William Hope began the construction of four Alabama-class cruisers. Farrand assumed command of all ships in Mobile Bay after Rear Admiral Franklin Buchanan was wounded in the Battle of Mobile Bay on August 5, 1864. Farrand oversaw the naval support provided by the remaining ships of the squadron of Confederate forces ashore during the Union siege of the forts guarding Mobile in late March and early April 1865. Following the Union capture of Mobile on April 12, and the arrival of a powerful Union naval force under Rear Admiral Henry K. Thatcher that blockaded the mouth of the Tombigbee River, Farrand surrendered Confederate naval forces in the Mobile area, then positioned in the Tombigbee River at Nanna Hubba Bluff, Alabama, on May 10, 1865. This force included CSS Nashville, Morgan, Baltic, and Black Diamond. Farrand was paroled at Nanna Hubba on May 10, 1865. Following the war, Farrand became an insurance representative in Montgomery, Alabama. He also operated a railroad hotel in Attalla, Alabama. Farrand died in Attalla in 1873. Spencer C. Tucker See also Armstrong, James; Baltic, CSS; Buchanan, Franklin; Drewry’s Bluff, First Battle of; Galena, USS; Ironclads, Confederate; James River; Jones, Catesby ap Roger; Lee, Sidney Smith; Mobile Bay; Mobile Bay, Battle of; Nashville, CSS, Ironclad; Pensacola Navy Yard; Riverine Warfare; Rodgers, John; Selma Naval Gun Foundry; Semmes, Raphael; Thatcher, Henry Knox; Virginia, CSS

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Coski, John M. Capital Navy: The Men, Ships and Operations of the James River Squadron. Campbell, CA: Savas, 1996. Register of Officers of the Confederate States Navy, 1861–1865: As Compiled and Revised by the Office of Naval Records and Library, United States Navy Department, 1931, from All Available Data. With a new introduction by John M. Carroll. Mattituck, NY: J. M. Carroll, 1981. [Originally published by the Naval Record and Library, U.S. Navy Department, in 1898 and revised in 1931.] Still, William N., Jr. Iron Afloat: The Story of the Confederate Armorclads. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1985. Still, William N., Jr., ed. The Confederate Navy: The Ships, Men and Organization, 1861–65. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997. U.S. Navy Department, Naval History Division. Civil War Naval Chronology, 1861– 1865. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971.

Fauntleroy, Charles Magillâ•‡ | 187

Fauntleroy, Charles Magill Birth Date: August 1, 1822 Death Date: July 28, 1889 Confederate Navy and Army officer. Born in Winchester, Virginia, on August 1, 1822, Charles Magill Fauntleroy received a midshipman’s warrant in the U.S. Navy on March 3, 1838. He was promoted to passed midshipman on May 20, 1844; to master on October 16, 1851; and to lieutenant on November 2, 1852. He resigned his commission on April 7, 1861, but new Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles did not accept it, and Fauntleroy is listed in U.S. Navy records as “dismissed” on May 13, 1861. Fauntleroy was one of the few officers of the brief-lived Virginia State Navy. Commissioned a lieutenant in the Confederate States Navy on June 10, 1861, he was for a short time detailed to the Confederate Army as an aide to General Joseph E. Johnston. Fauntleroy saw action as an ordnance officer in the First Battle of Bull Run (First Manassas) on July 21 and then commanded the Confederate naval defenses on the Potomac River at Harper’s Ferry. Fauntleroy was the executive officer on the Confederate commerce raider Nashville when it sailed from Charleston in October 1861. On its return, he was briefly detailed to the naval station at Richmond, Virginia. Because of his knowledge of artillery, Fauntleroy commanded the Confederate shore batteries in the First Battle of Drewry’s Bluff (May 15, 1862). He saw ground combat in the Battle of Seven Pines (May 31–June 1) and was commissioned a colonel in the Confederate Army that September until 1863. Returning to naval service, Fauntleroy commanded the blockade-runner Economist. While in France in March 1864, he was assigned command of the Confederate commerce raider Rappahannock, which was undergoing repairs at Calais. Convinced that the Confederacy would lose the war and threatened by the U.S. government, which warned that it would seek damages for any ships the raider sank, the French government of Emperor Napoleon III refused to let the RappaÂ� hanÂ�nock sail. Fauntleroy then paid off the ship’s crew and discharged them. After the end of the war, Fauntleroy returned to Virginia, married for a third time, and settled on his wife’s plantation near New Orleans, Louisiana. He died at Leesburg, Virginia, on July 28, 1889. Spencer C. Tucker See also Blockade-Runners; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Drewry’s Bluff, First Battle of; Nashville, CSS, Ironclad; Potomac River; Rappahannock, CSS; Richmond, Virginia; Welles, Gideon


188 |â•‡ Fingal, CSS Coski, John M. Capital Navy: The Men, Ships and Operations of the James River Squadron. Campbell, CA: Savas, 1996. Register of Officers of the Confederate States Navy, 1861–1865: As Compiled and Revised by the Office of Naval Records and Library, United States Navy Department, 1931, from All Available Data. With a new introduction by John M. Carroll. Mattituck, NY: J. M. Carroll, 1981. [Originally published by the Naval Record and Library, U.S. Navy Department, in 1898 and revised in 1931.]

Fingal, CSS Blockade-runner that became the Confederate ironclad Atlanta. Built by the firm of Thomson in Glasgow and launched in May 1861, the Fingal was purchased by James D. Bulloch, a Confederate Navy agent in England. On October 15, 1861, the ship departed Holyhead, Wales, for Bermuda under Bulloch’s command. From there the ship made the run to Savannah. Aided by a thick fog, Bulloch took advantage of the fact that only two blockading warships were positioned off the coast of Savannah, while other Union warships were engaged in riverine operations. The Fingal slipped past the two warships and reached Savannah on November 22. The Fingal carried the most important cargo to reach Savannah by sea during the war. It included 14,000 Enfield rifles; 1 million cartridges; 2 million percussion caps; thousands of sabers, bayonets, rifles, and revolvers; 10 rifled cannon and ammunition; 400 barrels of powder; and assorted medical supplies. With Savannah tightly blockaded, Bulloch was unable to return to England. In early 1862 the ship was cut down at the waterline and rebuilt at Savannah by Asa F. and Nelson Tift into the casemated ironclad ram Atlanta. After its capture in battle on June 17, 1863, the ship was repaired and taken into the U.S. Navy as USS Atlanta. Sold on May 4, 1869, to Haiti, it was renamed the Triumph but disappeared at sea off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, that December. Spencer C. Tucker See also Atlanta, CSS; Blockade-Runners; Bulloch, James Dunwody; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Ironclads, Confederate; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron

References Browning, Robert M., Jr. Success Is All That Was Expected: The South Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War. Dulles, VA: Brassey’s, 2002. Bulloch, James Dunwody. The Secret Service of the Confederate States in Europe, or How the Confederate Cruisers Were Equipped. New York: Modern Library, 2001. Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. Stern, Philip Van Doren. The Confederate Navy: A Pictorial History. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1962.

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Fitch, Le Roy Birth Date: October 1, 1835 Death Date: April 13, 1875 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Logansport, Indiana, on October 1, 1835. Le Roy Fitch received a midshipman’s warrant on October 1, 1852; he was promoted to passed midshipman on April 29, 1859, and to master on September 5, 1859. Fitch participated in the Battle for Island Number 10 (March 2–April 8, 1862), where he commanded the Judge Torrence, a U.S. ordnance steamer. He was promoted to lieutenant commander on September 21, 1862. As naval district commander of the Cumberland and Ohio rivers, Fitch was assigned a number of “tinclads” and charged with protecting the tenuous Union supply lines along these rivers. Fitch’s command was in almost constant battle with both regular and irregular Confederate forces. In July 1863 Confederate major general John Hunt Morgan and more than 2,000 cavalrymen crossed the Ohio River and raided numerous towns in Indiana and Ohio. Fitch’s flotilla blocked the Confederate escape route, resulting in the capture of Morgan and most of his men. His flotilla also skirmished with Confederate major general Nathan Bedford Forrest during the Battle of Nashville (December 15–16, 1864). Following the war, Fitch served as an assistant professor at the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, before taking command of the screw gunboat Marblehead. Advanced to commander on August 28, 1870, Fitch subsequently had charge of the Pensacola naval yard. He died unexpectedly in Logansport, Indiana, on April 13, 1875. William E. Whyte III See also Cumberland River; Island Number 10, Battle of; Naval Academy, United States; Ohio River; Pensacola Navy Yard; Riverine Warfare; Tinclads

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Campbell, R. Thomas. Academy on the James: The Confederate Naval School. Shippensburg, PA: Burd Street Press, 1998. Smith, Myron J., Jr. Le Roy Fitch: The Civil War Career of a Union River Gunboat Commander. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2007. Smith, Myron J., Jr. The Timberclads in the Civil War: The Lexington, Conestoga and Tyler on the Western Waters. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008.

Floating Battery Floating batteries were essentially gun platforms, initially not powered, that might be moved about in a defensive role. During the War of 1812, Robert Fulton

190 |â•‡ Florida, CSS

conceived of a powerful steam-powered floating battery to defend New York Harbor. This found fruition in the Demologos, the first steam warship of any nation. The Crimean War (1853–1856) saw the first floating batteries armored with sheets of forged iron. The French employed several of these to bombard the Russian Kinburn Forts. The next logical step was an ironclad ship, realized in the French Gloire of 1860. Examples of floating batteries during the Civil War include the Confederate ironclads Louisiana on the Mississippi River, used to protect the southern approaches to New Orleans, and the Georgia, a steam-powered floating battery used to protect Savannah. Spencer C. Tucker See also Island Number 10, Battle of; Mississippi River; Naval Ordnance; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; Riverine Warfare; Savannah River; Savannah River Squadron; Strategy, Confederate Naval

References Baxter, James Phinney, III. The Introduction of the Ironclad Warship. 1933; reprint, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2001. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. Tucker, Spencer C. Handbook of 19th Century Naval History. Stroud, UK: Sutton, 2000.

Florida, CSS Confederate commerce raider. Contracted by Confederate agent James D. Bulloch in June 1861, CSS Florida was the first British-built Confederate raider to get to sea. Constructed by the firm of William A. Miller and Sons of Liverpool, supposedly for an Italian buyer, it was first known as the Otero. Patterned after a Royal Navy dispatch boat, the ship was lengthened to 191 feet to provide additional storage space and to allow for more rigging and sail area. Displacing some 700 tons and powered by a single screw, the ship could make 9.5 knots under steam and 12 under sail. In January 1862 the U.S. consul at Liverpool uncovered information as to the ship’s true identity, but Bulloch got the ship to sea before the British government could take any action. The Otero sailed from Liverpool on March 22, 1862. At the same time, Bulloch sent out a cargo ship from Scotland with guns, ammunition, and provisions. In the Bahamas, Confederate Navy lieutenant John N. Maffitt took command and during August 9–16 oversaw the raider’s outfitting. On August 17, 1862, Maffitt officially commissioned his ship the Florida. It was armed with two 7-inch and six 6-inch rifled guns, and a 12-pounder howitzer.

Florida, CSSâ•‡ | 191

Much of the crew had contracted yellow fever, and after a number of men died, Maffitt put into Cuba for medical assistance and engaged a pilot familiar with the Confederate port of Mobile. Following a desperate dash across the Caribbean, with only a skeleton crew able to work the ship, the Florida passed through a hail of gunfire and three ships of the U.S. Navy blockading squadron to anchor in Mobile Bay on September 4. On January 17, 1863, repaired and with a full crew, the Florida again passed through an even larger Union blockading squadron. Both passages were major embarrassments for the U.S. Navy. The Florida then cruised the North Atlantic, taking 22 merchantmen. It arrived at Brest, France, in August 1863 to undergo repairs. There Maffitt fell ill, as did his replacement, Commander Joseph N. Barney. In January 1864 Lieutenant Charles N. Morris assumed command, and the next month he took the Florida out on its second cruise, principally off South America, during which it took another 11 Union merchantmen. On October 4, 1864, the Florida put in at Bahia, Brazil, to take on coal and undergo repairs. U.S. Navy commander Napoleon Collins’s screw sloop Wachusett was in the port, and Collins soon learned the raider’s identity. Having given reassurances to respect Brazilian neutrality, and confident that Collins would do the same, Morris allowed most of his crew ashore. Because the Confederate ship was so much faster than the Wachusett, however, the American consul at Bahia urged Collins to attack it in the harbor. Collins opposed this violation of international law but put it to vote of his officers, who approved. Early on the morning of October 7, 1864, the Wachusett steamed toward the Florida and rammed it. The blow damaged but did not sink the raider. The Wachusett then opened fire. Lieutenant Thomas K. Porter, commanding in Morris’s absence, had only 70 men aboard and none of his guns loaded. He was soon forced to surrender. The Wachusett then towed the Florida to sea, and a prize crew sailed it to the United States. In two years of operations, the Florida had taken 33 Union merchant ships and caused an estimated $4,051,000 in damages. The raider’s construction and cruises probably cost only $400,000. The Florida was at Newport News, Virginia, when it was accidentally rammed by the army transport Alliance and sprang a leak. Nine days later on November 28, 1864, its pumps having mysteriously stopped working, the Florida sank at anchor. The Brazilian government had registered strong protests over the ship’s seizure, and Washington had agreed to return it to Brazilian control. The U.S. government subsequently officially apologized to Brazil and promised to punish those guilty of the violation of neutrality. Nonetheless, Collins was promoted to captain in 1866 and retired from the navy as a rear admiral in 1874. Spencer C. Tucker See also Alabama, CSS; Barney, Joseph Nicholson; Blockade of the Confederacy; Â�Blockade-Runners; Bulloch, James Dunwody; Collins, Napoleon; Commerce Raiding,

192 |â•‡ Flotilla Confederate; East Gulf Blockading Squadron; Maffitt, John Newland; Mobile Bay; Prize Cases; Shenandoah, CSS

References Owsley, Frank L., Jr. The C.S.S. Florida: Her Building and Operations. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1965. Hearn, Chester G. Gray Raiders of the Sea: How Eight Confederate Warships Destroyed the Union’s High Seas Commerce. Camden, ME: International Marine Publishing, 1992. Shingleton, Royce. High Seas Confederate: The Life and Times of John Newland Maffitt. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1994.

Florida No. 2, CSS See Tacony, CSS

Flotilla Group or squadron of small ships. The word derives from the Spanish diminutive of flota, a fleet; thus flotilla means “little fleet.” A flotilla includes all small surface vessels, usually under the command of a captain, and individual vessels commanded by lieutenant commanders or lieutenants. A Civil War example is the U.S. Navy Potomac Flotilla, formed early in the war under Commander James H. Ward and centered on the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers for the defense of Washington. Use of the term has declined in contemporary times. Today, flotillas also comprise groups of vessels according to type, such as destroyers or submarines; they can also be a subdivision of a fleet. The term flotilla has fallen into disuse, and the designations of “fleet” or “squadron” are used more frequently. Esther K. Van Brunt See also Potomac Flotilla

References Kemp, Peter, ed. Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea. London: Oxford University Press, 1976. Quick, John. Dictionary of Weapons and Military Terms. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1973.

Food and Drink aboard Ship The quality and quantity of food varied widely aboard ship, but in both the Union and Confederate navies it was apparently quite plentiful and wholesome by the standards of the day. In July 1861 the U.S. Congress approved the following daily food ration for the navy:

Food and Drink aboard Shipâ•‡ | 193

One pound of salt pork, with half a pint of beans or peas; one pound salt beef, with half a pound of flour, and two ounces of dried apples or other fruit; or three quarters of preserved [canned] meat, with half a pound of rice, two ounces of butter, and one ounce of desiccated [dehydrated] mixed vegetables; or three quarters pound preserved meat, two ounces of butter, and two ounces of desiccated potato; together with fourteen ounces of biscuits [hardtack], one quarter of an ounce of tea, or one ounce of coffee or cocoa, two ounces of sugar, and a gill [four ounces] of spirits [grog]; and a weekly allowance of a half a pound of pickles, half a pint of molasses, and half a pint of vinegar. Breakfast might consist of coffee and hard bread. Dinner, at midday, was the main meal, with the menu varying according to season and proximity to port. It might be a combination of salt beef or pork, dried apples, dehydrated potatoes, rice, beans, vegetables, molasses, cheese, and butter. Supper was generally light. This prescribed navy diet was somewhat more ample than that allocated for soldiers in the army. Although generally well balanced and wholesome by the standards of the day, shipboard fare sometimes spoiled from long storage and was often accompanied by unwelcome worms, weevils, or cockroaches. One welcome innovation that found its way into sailors’ rations during the war was canned meat. Hard, dry, baked “hardtack” crackers of flour, three inches square and an inch thick, were the main source of carbohydrates. Packages from home, especially on birthdays and Christmas, supplemented this diet, as did the efforts of landing parties on an enemy shore. Seamen on the western rivers had the most opportunity to forage. A sailor on the stern-wheeler USS Forest Rose reported, “We left Natchez yesterday .â•¯.â•¯. stopping at several plantations on our way up to procure forage. We succeeded admirably, obtaining a good supply of vegetables and some poultry.” While sailors often did not benefit from the proximity of fresh produce on land, in many respects they enjoyed the benefits of a superior logistical system. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles made it a priority that the men receive “frequent supplies of fresh provisions and other necessities conducive to health,” and a large number of supply ships delivered every two or three weeks fresh meat, vegetables, and ice, as well as mail, newspapers, spare parts, and replacement seamen to the Union blockading vessels. Alcohol on board ship often posed problems. Seamen received a grog ration at mealtimes, sometimes even at breakfast. Grog (half rum and half water) was traditional in the naval service and grew out of the Royal Navy practice of serving this twice a day, even to ships’ boys and midshipmen. In the U.S. Navy, grog usually meant rye whiskey, which was cheaper than rum. At the time, liquor was both cheap and plentiful, and often water fit to drink was hard to come by. Many Americans also believed that alcohol had a positive health

194 |â•‡ Food and Drink aboard Ship

benefit in helping to prevent disease, but its only real advantage was probably in helping to mask true feelings. For many sailors, the grog ration was the most anticipated part of the day, as life aboard ship tended to be monotonous and dreary. In consequence, there were more problems with alcoholism aboard ship than among soldiers on land. Union seaman Harry Browne expressed an opinion felt by many when he wrote of his shipmates, “All are great smokers and drinkers.” For a number of seamen, drinking was already an important element of their lives. Often in boarding another vessel, seamen sought out alcohol above all else. During the boarding of one seized blockade-runner, sailors from the U.S. Navy sloop Brooklyn became so drunk and difficult to control that an officer restored order only by slashing one man’s throat with a sword. Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote led the crusade in the U.S. Navy for temperance. Beginning in 1831, seamen had been allowed to refuse their grog ration and receive a pay supplement in its stead. In July 1862, aided by the absence of Southern opposition and with the strong support of Secretary Welles, Congress passed, and President Lincoln signed, legislation that abolished the grog ration aboard Union ships and mandated a five-cent-per-day payment in its stead. The regulation went into effect on September 1. Many sailors were highly upset with the new regulation. One recalled the reaction of his shipmates: I well remember the day we received the news that grog was abolished.â•¯.â•¯.â•¯. Curses not so loud, but deep, were indulged in by old tars, some of whom, had seen years of service, and who, by custom, had become habituated to their allowance of grog, that the very expectation of it was accompanied by a feeling of pleasure. It was a long time before the men forgot the actions of congress, and in fact, they never ceased to talk about it. Spencer C. Tucker See also Discipline, Naval; Foote, Andrew Hull; Lincoln, Abraham; Philadelphia Naval Asylum; Shipboard Life; Welles, Gideon

References Bennett, Michael J. Union Jacks: Yankee Sailors in the Civil War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. Ringle, Dennis J. Life in Mr. Lincoln’s Navy. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Foote, Andrew Hullâ•‡ | 195

Foote, Andrew Hull Birth Date: June 20, 1806 Death Date: June 26, 1863 U.S. Navy admiral. Born in New Haven, Connecticut, on June 20, 1806, Andrew H. Foote was the son of future U.S. representative, later senator, Samuel A. Foot. Andrew Foote (he departed from family tradition by adding the “e” to his name) briefly attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point during June–December 1822 but resigned to accept an appointment as an acting midshipman in the navy on December 4. Foote served first in the West Indies, then spent three years in the Pacific. He was advanced to passed midshipman on May 24, 1828. His religious conversion in 1827, during another Caribbean cruise, led to a lifelong interest in furthering Christianity and in reform. He was promoted to lieutenant on May 27, 1830. Following cruises in the Mediterranean and around the world during 1837–1841, he spent three years ashore as the executive officer at the Philadelphia Naval Asylum. In 1843 he became the first lieutenant of the frigate Cumberland and succeeded in making it the first temperance ship in the U.S. Navy. Foote was undoubtedly the key advocate in the navy for the abolition of the spirit ration, which became reality in 1862. During 1849–1851 Foote commanded the brig Perry off the southwest coast of Africa, protecting U.S. trade and cruising against the slave trade. In the process the Perry took two slavers. After his return to the United States, Foote published a book about his experiences; Africa and the American Flag (1854) was a plea both for enhanced American action against the slave trade and for support of the African colonization movement in Liberia. He was promoted to commander on December 19, 1852. After five years ashore, where he remained active in naval reform, including service on the 1855 Efficiency Board that cut deadwood from the navy, Foote returned to sea as commander of the sloop Portsmouth in the Asia Squadron. To avenge Chinese firing on U.S. vessels, he personally led Flag officer Andrew H. Foote commanded the Union flotilla on western waters and, a force ashore that destroyed four Chi- working closely with army counterpart nese forts guarding the river approach Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant, led it to to Canton in November 1856. At the important victories on the Tennessee and beginning of 1861, Foote had been in Cumberland rivers. (National Archives)

196 |â•‡ Foote, Andrew Hull

the navy for 38 years: 20 in service afloat, 7 in assignments ashore, and 10 years awaiting orders in a navy with too many officers for available assignments. On the outbreak of the Civil War, Foote commanded the Brooklyn Navy Yard. He was promoted to captain on June 29, 1861. In August 1861 Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles sent him to command the Union flotilla in the West, replacing Captain John Rodgers, who had run afoul of Major General John C. Frémont, commander of the Western Department. Foote made only minor changes in the gunboats already contracted for and undergoing conversion. His chief accomplishments were to bring the warships to completion; oversee their manning, equipment, and training; and lead them in battle—tasks well suited to this capable naval administrator. Foote got along well with his army counterpart, Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant. An aggressive commander, Foote pushed for the attack on Fort Henry in Tennessee, and his flotilla took the leading role in the Union attack on that Confederate fort on February 6, 1862, actually securing its surrender before Grant’s land troops arrived. Foote then sent Lieutenant Seth L. Phelps on a raid up the Tennessee River. In the subsequent Union naval attack on Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River on February 14, Foote’s ironclads were rebuffed, and he himself was slightly wounded, although Donelson did fall to Grant’s land troops. Foote claimed afterward that he had been forced to fight at Donelson before he was ready. In many ways, Donelson changed Foote. He became much more cautious, and working to strengthen his gunboats, he delayed their participation in attacks against New Madrid and Island Number 10. Foote preferred to use 13-inch mortars mounted on his newly ready mortar boats to reduce the Confederate forts. To those who called for his ships to assault the Confederate positions, Foote pointed out the problems involved. They included substantial Confederate land batteries and the risk of losing ships in the flotilla, for unlike at Donelson and Henry, any disabled Union gunboats would drift downriver under Confederate guns. Finally, following repeated appeals from Union major general John Pope, Foote did send two ironclads past the Confederate forts to cut off Island Number 10 and operate in conjunction with Pope’s Army of the Mississippi. The Confederates then surrendered Island Number 10. Foote and Union troops then moved farther down the Mississippi to Fort Pillow. By now Foote was virtually immobile, his leg wound having failed to heal. He was also mentally exhausted, worn out by his exertions. On May 9 Captain Charles H. Davis took over the flotilla, and Foote went on a leave of absence, although he remained in nominal command of the squadron until June. In July 1862 Foote returned to active duty to head the Bureau of Equipment and Recruiting in Washington. One of the first Union naval officers promoted to the new rank of admiral, he was unhappy ashore. He did not seek the position, but when Welles relieved Admiral Samuel F. Du Pont as commander of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, Foote agreed to take that post. He was preparing to go to Charleston, with Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren as his second in command,

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when he was suddenly struck down by Bright’s disease. After a short illness Foote died in New York City on June 26, 1863. Much respected, even beloved, by his men, Foote was a capable administrator and a brave and tenacious commander. Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Belmont, Battle of; Brooklyn Navy Yard; Cairo-Class River Ironclads; Cairo Naval Station; Cumberland River; Dahlgren, John Adolph Bernard; Davis, Charles Henry; Discipline, Naval; Du Pont, Samuel Francis; Eads, James Buchanan; Flotilla; Food and Drink aboard Ship; Fort Donelson, Battle of; Fort Henry, Battle of; Fort Pillow, Tennessee; Ironclads, Union; Island Number 10, Battle of; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Mortar Boats; Phelps, Seth Ledyard; Phelps’s Raid; Philadelphia Naval Asylum; Riverine Warfare; Rodgers, John; Shipboard Life; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Tennessee River; Welles, Gideon

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Campbell, R. Thomas. Academy on the James: The Confederate Naval School. Shippensburg, PA: Burd Street Press, 1998. Hoppin, James M. The Life of Andrew Hull Foote, Rear Admiral, United States Navy. New York: Harper and Bros., 1874. Milligan, John D. “Andrew Foote: Zealous Reformer, Administrator, Warrior.” In Captains of the Old Steam Navy: Makers of the American Naval Tradition, 1840–1880, edited by James C. Bradford, 115–141. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1986. Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001. Tucker, Spencer C. Andrew Foote: Civil War Admiral on Western Waters. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000.

Forest Rose, USS Tinclad (lightly armored) stern-wheel river gunboat No. 9 of the U.S. Navy’s Mississippi Squadron. Built in Freedom, Pennsylvania, and sold to the U.S. Navy in 1862 for conversion into a warship, the 260-ton Forest Rose was commissioned in December of that year. It was 155 feet in length, with a beam of 32 feet 3 inches and a draft of 5 feet, and was capable of 5.5 knots. Its armament consisted of two 4.2-inch (30-pounder) Parrott rifles and four 24-pounder Dahlgren boat howitzers. The Forest Rose participated in the capture of Fort Hindman (January 9–11, 1863) and then saw service on the Yazoo River and above Vicksburg in 1863. In May 1864 the crew of the Forest Rose assisted in the building of Bailey’s Dam at Alexandria, Louisiana, during the Red River Campaign (March 10–May 22, 1864). The ship was decommissioned on August 7, 1865, and sold later that same month. Gary D. Joiner

198 |â•‡ Forrest, French See also Fort Hindman, Battle of; Ironclads, Union; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Red River Campaign; Riverine Warfare; Tinclads; Vicksburg Campaign; Yazoo River

References Johnson, Ludwell H. Red River Campaign: Politics & Cotton in the Civil War. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1993. Joiner, Gary D. Mr. Lincoln’s Brown Water Navy: The Mississippi Squadron. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007. Way, Frederick, Jr. Way’s Packet Directory, 1848–1994. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1994.

Forrest, French Birth Date: 1796 Death Date: December 22, 1866 Confederate Navy officer. Born in St. Mary’s City, Maryland, in 1796, French Â�Forrest secured a warrant as a midshipman in the U.S. Navy on June 9, 1811. During the War of 1812 he took part in the action between the U.S. Navy brig Hornet and the Royal Navy brig Peacock on February 24, 1813, and in the Battle of Lake Erie on September 10, 1813. Forrest was promoted to lieutenant on March 5, 1817; to commander on February 9, 1837; and to captain on March 30, 1844. During the Mexican-American War (1846–1848), Captain Forrest commanded the frigate Cumberland. He had charge of the 253-man landing force that captured Tabasco in October 1846. Because the Cumberland had grounded on Chopas Reef in July and needed docking, Forrest then took command of the frigate Raritan. In the amphibious operation against Veracruz in March 1847, Forrest had charge of the embarkation of the troops who departed Antón Lizardo and also charge of the landing operations at Collado Beach, but about the time Major General Winfield Scott moved ashore, Commander Joshua Sands replaced Forrest. Forrest subsequently took part in operations against Tuxpan in April 1847. Said to be completely fearless in battle, Forrest had little opportunity to demonstrate this quality during the Civil War. When Virginia seceded, Forrest resigned his commission on April 19, 1861, to become the first and only flag officer of the Virginia State Navy and assume command of the Norfolk (Gosport) Navy Yard. He then joined the Confederate Navy and received a captain’s commission on June 10 as the third most senior officer. Forrest remained in command of the Norfolk Yard from April 22, 1861, to May 15, 1862. Confederate secretary of the navy Stephen R. Mallory ordered Forrest to raise the scuttled U.S. steam frigate Merrimack and rebuild it as the ironclad CSS Virginia. Forrest had expected to command the ironclad when it was completed, but that assignment went to Captain Franklin Buchanan. Mallory replaced Forrest at Norfolk several months after the epic clash

Fort Anderson and Wilmington, North Carolina, Union Operations against â•‡ | 199 between USS Monitor and CSS Virginia because he believed that Forrest had been slow to repair the Virginia. Forrest then headed the Confederate Navy Office of Orders and Details (the senior navy bureau that dealt with personnel matters) until March 1863. Forrest twice commanded the James River Squadron: during July 10, 1861–February 27, 1862, when he was succeeded by Captain Buchanan; and during March 24, 1863–May 6, 1864, when he was succeeded by Captain John K. Mitchell. The squadron did not engage in any significant action during Forrest’s tenure. Forrest then became acting assistant secretary of the navy. Forrest died shortly after the war, in Georgetown, District of Columbia, on December 22, 1866. Spencer C. Tucker See also Buchanan, Franklin; Hampton Roads, Battle of; James River; James River Squadron, CSA; Mallory, Stephen Russell; Mitchell, John Kirkwood; Monitor, USS; Norfolk Navy Yard; Virginia, CSS

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Coski, John M. Capital Navy: The Men, Ships and Operations of the James River Squadron. Campbell, CA: Savas, 1996. Register of Officers of the Confederate States Navy, 1861–1865: As Compiled and Revised by the Office of Naval Records and Library, United States Navy Department, 1931, from All Available Data. With a new introduction by John M. Carroll. Mattituck, NY: J. M. Carroll, 1981. [Originally published by the Naval Record and Library, U.S. Navy Department, in 1898 and revised in 1931.] Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001.

Fort Anderson and Wilmington, North Carolina, Union Operations against Start Date: February 17, 1865 End Date: February 22, 1865 The Union capture of Fort Fisher at the mouth of the Cape Fear River on January 15, 1865, ended Confederate blockade-running out of Wilmington, North Carolina, and enabled Union forces to move against Wilmington itself, some 20 miles up the Cape Fear. Railroad connections there could pose a serious threat to the 60,000 Union forces under Major General William T. Sherman then preparing to move through North Carolina. Anticipating the Union move, Confederate general Braxton Bragg opted for an immediate evacuation of the forts at the mouth of the Cape Fear. Completed by January 20, this decision led to the loss of a considerable

200 |â•‡ Fort Anderson and Wilmington, North Carolina, Union Operations against

number of heavy guns, which were now not available to be moved to Wilmington for its defense. Indeed, Bragg did not intend to fight for Wilmington and failed to appreciate its importance in Union hands as a supply point for Sherman. Despite this loss, Wilmington boasted extensive defenses against an attack up the Cape Fear, including water obstacles, breastworks, and four forts on the river. Following the capture of Fort Fisher, the commander of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, Rear Admiral David D. Porter, gathered ships and supplies for the Cape Fear operation. On January 22, he sent the steamer Pequot up the river to Fort Anderson located on the west bank and the strongest Confederate defensive works on the river. The small Pequot lobbed seven shells at the fort, which fired two shots in return. The Pequot then returned downriver. Union crews then spent several weeks rigging torpedo rafts and mounting XI-inch Dahlgren smoothbore guns in place of rifled Parrott guns in order to engage the land forts more effectively. Procedures were also developed to deal with any watercraft equipped with spar torpedoes, including the Confederate torpedo boat Squib. Defensive measures included a large number of picket boats, their crews armed with a wide variety of small arms. On January 28, Union Army general in chief Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant, Major General Alfred E. Terry, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gustavus V. Fox, and Porter met aboard the steamer Malvern. The plan they developed called for one force under Major General John Schofield to move up the peninsula to capture Wilmington and keep Bragg from interfering with Sherman’s move through North Carolina. At the same time, another force of some 6,000 men under Major General Jacob D. Cox would cross the river and mount a coordinated attack with Union gunboats to take Fort Anderson, now defended by a Confederate force of less than half that number. Schofield later changed the plan. Instead of also advancing on the west side of the river, he decided to move up the east side of the Cape Fear. Schofield set out on February 11 with some 13,000 men then available. His immediate objective was a Confederate fort at Sugar Loaf. Porter sent his gunboats up the Cape Fear at the same time, and they engaged both Sugar Loaf and Fort Anderson on the other side of the river over a four-hour span. On January 14, Schofield decided to go back to the original plan and operate on the west bank, where his men would have more room to maneuver. Porter’s gunboats protected their passage across the river. Thus far limited largely to harassing fire, Porter’s ships opened and sustained heavy fire on Fort Anderson beginning on February 17. The ironclad Montauk fired from short range, while the unprotected gunboats Pawtuxet, Lenapee, Unadilla, and Pequot fired from a safer distance. The next day Porter had available the Montauk and 14 wooden gunboats, and they again engaged the fort. Confederate return fire inflicted little damage and only a few casualties. That night Porter released in the river at flood tide a “bogus monitor” made of an old scow and canvas to float

Fort Anderson and Wilmington, North Carolina, Union Operations against â•‡ | 201 past Fort Anderson, the purpose of which was really to explode Confederate torpedoes (mines) in the river. It was not this “monitor” but the flanking movement of Union troops on land that caused the fort’s commander, Brigadier General Johnson Hagood, to order the fort evacuated on February 19. After the Confederate abandonment of Fort Anderson, Porter employed some 50 boats to remove torpedoes from the river. The Union sailors also had to remove obstructions in the form of pilings and several ships the Confederates had sunk in the river. On February 19, Porter, who was impatient with the slow pace of the Union land advance, sent launches to the vicinity of Confederate river batteries within three miles of Wilmington. Fired on, they soon withdrew out of range. On February 20, Union naval forces advanced up the river in strength as troops moved on both sides of the river toward Wilmington. That afternoon, the Union ships loosed a heavy fire on Confederate Forts Lee, Mears, and Campbell (known to the Union as Fort Strong). The army, meanwhile, fought skirmishes at Town Creek and at Forks Road just outside of Wilmington. On the night of February 20, the Confederates sent down the river some 100 torpedoes, each charged with 100 pounds of powder. Although Porter’s men reacted quickly and employed boats and skeins spread across the river to catch the torpedoes and riflemen to explode or sink them, several torpedoes did get through. One badly damaged the side-wheeler USS Osceola and another destroyed a launch from the steamer Shawmut, killing two men and wounding another two. On February 21, the gunboats continued to engage the forts as Bragg set troops marching back and forth in a vain effort to convince the Union troops he was being reinforced, while in fact he was evacuating Wilmington. That night the Confederate forces withdrew to the north side of the Northeast Cape Fear River, and Union forces entered Wilmington on the morning of February 22. They were joined at the city by Porter’s gunboats, which fired salutes, not only to celebrate the capture of Wilmington, but in honor of George Washington’s birthday. The loss of Wilmington was a major blow to Confederate efforts to continue the war. Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Fort Fisher Campaign; Fox, Gustavus Vasa; Ironclads, Union; Montauk, USS; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Porter, David Dixon; Riverine Warfare; Spar Torpedo; Torpedoes; Wilmington, North Carolina, Engagements at

References Browning, Robert M., Jr. From Cape Charles to Cape Fear: The North Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1993. McCaslin, Richard B. The Last Stronghold: The Campaign for Fort Fisher. Abilene, TX: McWhiney Foundation Press, 2003. Robinson, Charles M., III. Hurricane of Fire: The Union Assault on Fort Fisher. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 12. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1901.

202 |â•‡ Fort Donelson, Battle of

Fort Donelson, Battle of Start Date: February 13, 1862 End Date: February 16, 1862 Important early Union victory in the western theater. Located on the west bank of the Cumberland River two miles north of Dover, Tennessee, Fort Donelson sat on a steep bluff overlooking a straight stretch of several miles of river. The fort was only about 15 acres in size, but its outer works extended more than 100 acres. Four hundred log cabins within the fort served as barracks. Donelson had two river batteries cut into the slope of the ridge facing downriver. The lower battery contained a 10-inch Columbiad and nine 32-pounders. The upper battery consisted of a 10-inch Columbiad rifled as a 32-pounder and two 32-pounder carronades. The fort itself had eight additional guns. On February 7, the day after the fall of nearby Fort Henry, Donelson’s garrison numbered only about 6,000 men, including two brigades of infantry from Fort Henry. Following the fall of Fort Henry, Confederate western theater commander General Albert S. Johnston blundered. Although he decided to extract his garrisons in Kentucky and at Columbus, at the same time he reinforced Donelson with 12,000 men to hold Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant’s troops until he could withdraw most of his eastern forces to Nashville. Johnston could easily have concentrated at Donelson some 30,000 men, outnumbering Grant there 2–1. Johnston appointed Brigadier General John B. Floyd to command Fort Donelson. Floyd was at best incompetent; his second in command, Brigadier General Gideon J. Pillow, was both ambitious and incompetent. Brigadier General Simon Bolivar Buckner was the sole capable senior Confederate officer at Donelson. Bad weather imposed a delay, but on February 12 Grant moved from Fort Henry to Fort Donelson. At the same time Union flag officer Andrew H. Foote sailed with his gunboats and troop transports, arriving in the vicinity of Fort Donelson on the night of February 13. That day 15,000 unentrenched Union troops confronted 21,000 entrenched Confederates. Fortunately for Grant, however, Floyd made no effort to attack. In fact, Union troops initiated the little fighting that occurred. Shortly after noon on February 13, despite Grant’s order not to bring on a general engagement, Brigadier General John A. McClernand ordered his men to capture a battery in the center of the Confederate line. Repeated Union assaults failed. Grant was displeased, but the action did serve to mask Union inferiority in numbers. That afternoon the weather changed dramatically from near summer to winter conditions. Driving wind brought sleet and snow and suffering to both sides. By February 14 the Confederates were completely invested, except along the Cumberland River above Dover where the river had flooded the land. As Grant strengthened and extended his lines, the Confederate commanders decided to attempt to break out. On February 14, however, Floyd countermanded the order on the insistence of Pillow, who thought it too late in the day for an attempt.

Fort Donelson, Battle ofâ•‡ | 203

The Union naval attack on the water batteries of Fort Donelson, February 14, 1862. The timberclads Tyler and Conestoga are at the left, forming a second division behind the Union ironclads in the center. (Library of Congress)

Grant planned to hold the Confederates within the fort from the land while the Union flotilla destroyed the water batteries. Shortly before 3:00 p.m. on February 14, the Union flotilla attacked. Foote employed the same formation as in the assault on Fort Henry: the ironclads St. Louis, Carondelet, Louisville, and Pittsburg in front and the vulnerable timberclads Tyler and Conestoga in a second division about 1,000 yards astern and beyond the range of Donelson’s guns. The Union ships closed to within 400 yards. The plunging Confederate fire hit the sloping Union armor at right angles, and in the exchange of fire three of the four ironclads were disabled and drifted downstream. The other vessels then withdrew. In the 90-minute engagement, the flotilla sustained 11 men killed and 43 wounded (including Foote). Although none of the gunboats were fatally damaged, from that point on the navy contributed little to the battle. In contrast, the fort was little damaged in the Union attack. Union troop reinforcements continued to arrive. Before dawn on February 15, Grant left his headquarters to meet with Foote on the latter’s request. Before departing, Grant instructed his commanders not to initiate an engagement unless he ordered it. Grant assumed that he would be the one to begin any new fighting. The Confederate commanders knew their position was untenable, and on the night of February 14 they agreed to attempt to break out along the west bank of the Cumberland River. Pillow was to open an escape route by rolling up the Union right while Buckner sortied and struck the center. When the Union right flank had been pushed back, Pillow would lead the retreat to Charlotte with Buckner acting as the rear guard. The Confederate attack at 6:00 a.m. on February 15 caught Union troops completely by surprise. In a hard-fought close action, the Confederates drove the Union troops back, although the latter withdrew in good order. Buckner then sent men forward. Union troops soon used up their ammunition and were forced to retreat. With the road to Charlotte open, Pillow now threw away the chance to escape. Imagining that he was in position to defeat Grant, he continued the attack. With

204 |â•‡ Fort Donelson, Battle of

the situation desperate, Union brigadier general Lew Wallace ordered his men forward, driving the Confederates back. Grant now arrived on the scene and ordered the ground lost to be retaken. He also assumed that in order to break through, the Confederates must have weakened their lines elsewhere, and he ordered Brigadier General Charles F. Smith to mount an immediate attack on the Confederate right. Grant told an aide that the first side to attack would be victorious. Smith attacked and his men soon breached Donelson’s breastworks. Although Buckner finally halted the Union advance, he could not force the invaders out of the works and the entire Confederate position was now in jeopardy. General Wallace’s division was also successful in retaking the ground lost earlier. Additional Union infantry regiments reached the Donelson area by river transport that evening, bringing Union strength to 27,000 men. It was now no longer possible for the bulk of the Confederates to escape, and during the night of February 16–17 Generals Floyd, Pillow, and Buckner again met. With the situation hopeless, Pillow and Floyd decided to escape across the Cumberland. Buckner announced he would share the fate of the garrison and assumed command. Colonel Nathan Bedford Forrest also got away with some 500 men on horseback by fording the creek between the Union right flank and the river. In all perhaps 5,000 Confederates escaped. Early on February 16, Buckner asked for an armistice and surrender terms. On General Smith’s urging Grant replied, “No terms except unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works.” Buckner had no choice but to capitulate. As many as 15,000 Confederates surrendered at Fort Donelson. Union troops also secured a considerable number of small arms, 57 light and heavy guns, and equipment and rations. Estimates of Confederate killed and wounded in the battle range from 1,500 to 3,500. Union losses were 2,832: 500 killed, 2,108 wounded, and 221 captured or missing. The fall of Donelson led directly to the Union capture of Nashville, the first Confederate state capital taken. The loss of Donelson’s garrison also impacted, perhaps decisively, the subsequent April 6–7, 1862, Battle of Shiloh. Had the men lost at Donelson been available to fight at Shiloh, the outcome of that battle might well have been different. Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Baron de Kalb, USS; Cairo-Class River Ironclads; Cairo Naval Station; Carondelet, USS; Conestoga, USS; Cumberland River; Fitch, Le Roy; Flotilla; Foote, Andrew Hull; Fort Henry, Battle of; Ironclads, Union; Louisville, USS; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Phelps, Seth Ledyard; Phelps’s Raid; Pittsburg, USS; Riverine Warfare; Tennessee River; Timberclads; Tyler, USS

References Ambrose, Stephen E. The Campaigns for Fort Donelson: A Review. Conshohocken, PA: Eastern Acorn, 1983. Cooling, B. Franklin. Forts Henry and Donelson: The Key to the Confederate Heartland. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1987.

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Tucker, Spencer C. Andrew Foote: Civil War Admiral on Western Waters. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000. Tucker, Spencer C. Unconditional Surrender: The Capture of Forts Henry and Donelson. Abilene, TX: McWhiney Foundation Press, 2001.

Fort Fisher Campaign Start Date: December 1864 End Date: January 1865 At the end of 1864, Wilmington, North Carolina, was the last remaining major Confederate port open to blockade-runners and an important supply link for the Army of Northern Virginia. Both U.S. Army general in chief Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant and navy leaders concurred on the need to close Wilmington. In December 1864, Rear Admiral David D. Porter, commander of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, assembled the most powerful naval force to that point in U.S. history: 61 warships, including 5 ironclads, mounting a total of 635 guns. Grant provided two divisions of 6,500 men under Major General Benjamin Butler. Before the troops could move against Wilmington, they would first have to destroy Fort Fisher. This powerful Confederate works was situated on a narrow spit of land at the entrance to the Cape Fear River. Taking Fisher would mean the end of blockade-running out of Wilmington. Fisher was fortified principally on the east facing the sea and on the south facing the river access. The side facing the sea extended nearly three-quarters of a mile, while the southern face was about a quarter mile in length. The Union plan called for Butler’s men to come ashore north of the fort. Porter’s ships would then bombard the fort after which the troops would assault it from its north face, supported by naval gunfire. Confederate colonel William Lamb commanded Fort Fisher and its 1,900 men. The defenders were well protected in a carefully laid-out earthwork with shellproof chambers. They manned 45 heavy guns as well as numerous smaller pieces. The fort’s northern land face was protected by a high palisade of logs in front of which the Confederates had planted numerous land mines. At 1:50 a.m. on December 24, 1864, Union naval volunteers positioned and blew up off Fort Fisher the former blockade-runner Louisiana, loaded with 150 tons of powder. Butler had proposed the attempt in the hope that it would damage the fort’s walls. The ship was not positioned as close to the fort as planned, and the blast had no effect. About noon on December 24, Porter’s ships began a bombardment of the Confederate works at the rate of some 115 shots a minute. The shelling inflicted little damage, and most casualties among the defenders were caused by the bursting of several of their rifled guns. Two of the ships were damaged in the exchange of fire.

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Nonetheless, within about an hour and a half of bombardment, the fort’s guns had largely been silenced. The ships then maintained a continuing slow bombardment while awaiting Butler’s transports, which, however, arrived too late for a landing that day. On Christmas Day, Porter resumed the bombardment about 10:30 a.m., while 17 of his smaller warships covered and assisted with the unopposed landing of 2,000 of Butler’s troops. Meanwhile, Porter’s attempt to locate a

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channel through New Inlet in order to bring Fisher under fire from the Cape Fear River was unsuccessful. Late that afternoon, some of Butler’s men worked their way to within several hundred yards of the fort. They reported the works were virtually undamaged from the bombardment. Following a brief demonstration but without attempting an assault, on December 27 Butler reembarked his men and sailed back to Fort Monroe. Porter was furious at Butler’s unilateral action and demanded his removal from command. Grant agreed and replaced him with Brigadier General Alfred H. Terry, enjoining him to cooperate fully with Porter. Meanwhile, Porter periodically shelled Fort Fisher in an effort to prevent Confederate rebuilding. The second Union assault on Fort Fisher, on January 13, 1865, was a textbook operation. Porter assembled 59 warships to support Terry’s 8,000 men in four divisions who landed north of the fort. Terry deployed some of his men to build a strong defensive line across the upper neck of the peninsula in order to hold off some 6,000 Confederate troops in the Wilmington area under General Braxton Bragg and Major General Robert F. Hoke. On January 14, as Terry’s troops prepared to assault Fisher’s northern face, Porter’s ships again bombarded the fort’s seaward side. Porter concentrated his most powerful ships at close range against Confederate guns able to fire on the Union troops. These included the New Ironsides and the monitors Saugus, Canonicus, Monadnock, and Mahopac. The bombardment lasted all day, and a few ships continued to fire shells into the night before they departed. The shelling inflicted some 300 Confederate casualties, disabled some of the fort’s heavy guns, and opened breaches in the defenses. It also severed wires used to detonate land mines. On the evening of January 14, Porter and Terry met aboard Porter’s flagship, the Malvern. They set the land assault for 3:00 p.m. on January 15. Porter agreed to land some 400 marines and 1,600 sailors for a simultaneous assault against the fort’s sea face to the north. Shortly after 9:00 a.m. on January 15, the Union ships recommenced their bombardment. At about noon, landing detachments drawn from 35 ships went ashore just north of the fort. Commander K. P. Breese had overall command. The men were only lightly armed, the marines with rifles and bayonets and the sailors with pistols and cutlasses. The men then worked their way along the shore to the point where the north and east faces of the fort met. The Union attack was to have been simultaneous, but the soldiers had to make their way through woods and were delayed. The sailors and marines approached along an open beach. Halting at the salient and under heavy fire from the fort, they attempted to charge through gaps in the palisades affected by the naval gunfire. Confederate canister and rifle fire cut down many of the attackers. Only about 60 men broke through the palisade before the attack was halted and the marines and sailors withdrew in panic. About a fifth of the attackers were casualties.

208 |â•‡ Fort Harrison and Chaffin’s Bluff, Battle of

The navy attack was not in vain, however. Assuming it to be the main Union effort, the defenders concentrated against it. Exploiting the opportunity, Terry pushed his men through the palisade and up the parapet on the land face. Many men fell to Confederate artillery and rifle fire, but the survivors poured into the works. Meanwhile, the Union ships provided highly effective gunfire support. Hand-to-hand fighting ensued, and the outcome remained in doubt until early evening when Terry committed his reserves. At about 9:00 p.m. on January 15, the Confederates surrendered. The attackers had suffered some 1,000 killed and wounded. The defenders lost half that number, among them Colonel Lamb, severely wounded. Subsequently, three dozen Union sailors and marines received the Medal of Honor for the action. Fort Fisher was the most heavily fortified position taken by amphibious assault during the war. With its capture, Union forces then took all the surrounding works, including 139 guns. They then advanced up the Cape Fear River. Wilmington surrendered on February 23, 1865, starving Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia of essential supplies. Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Blockade of the Confederacy; Blockade-Runners; Breese, Samuel Livingston; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Fort Monroe, Virginia; Ironclads, Union; Marine Corps, U.S.; Medal of Honor, U.S. Navy; New Ironsides, USS; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Porter, David Dixon; Wilmington, North Carolina, Engagements at

References Browning, Robert M., Jr. From Cape Charles to Cape Fear: The North Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1993. McCaslin, Richard B. The Last Stronghold: The Campaign for Fort Fisher. Abilene, TX: McWhiney Foundation Press, 2003. Robinson, Charles M., III. Hurricane of Fire: The Union Assault on Fort Fisher. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998.

Fort Harrison and Chaffin’s Bluff, Battle of Start Date: September 29, 1864 End Date: October 1, 1864 In the period between June 1864 and January 1865, there was a series of engagements along the James River in eastern Virginia that saw both Confederate and Union ships operating in support of their land forces. The area only a short distance downriver from Richmond was essentially a no-man’s-land. About one mile from the Confederate Naval Academy at Drewry’s Bluff lay Chaffin’s Bluff. The area north of the James between Chaffin’s Bluff and Trent’s Reach was nominally under Confederate control but also exposed to fire from land batteries of both

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sides. Chaffin’s Bluff anchored the Confederate line; extending inland from it were a series of earthworks, the most important of which was Fort Harrison. On September 29, 1864, Flag Officer John K. Mitchell was in Richmond and Commander Thomas R. Rootes was in temporary command of the Confederate James River Squadron when Confederate general Robert E. Lee called on the squadron to assist the army. At dawn that day, Union forces mounted what turned out to be the largest military operation north of the James between the Battle of Cold Harbor in June 1864 and the end of the war. The Union attack captured Confederate Fort Harrison and then threatened to take Chaffin’s Bluff. Rootes responded by stationing the gunboats Nansemond, Beaufort, and Drewry at Chaffin’s Bluff to support the Confederate land forces there. He also moved the ironclads Richmond and Fredericksburg downriver, followed by the Virginia II (which was, at the time the attack occurred, receiving on board a new, large 8-inch rifled gun, which delayed its departure), to Kingsland Reach just above the bend in the river known as the graveyard. There they opened fire on Union forces north of the river in the vicinity of Fort Harrison. A Confederate marine officer sent ashore to gauge the effect of the fire reported that the Confederate rounds were falling short. To reach the fort required not only the maximum elevation of six to seven degrees possible on the ironclads’ rifled guns but also heavier charges than normally allowed. Shell from the ships’ 8-, 9-, and 11-inch shell guns fell short and endangered Confederate troops. Realizing the extreme danger to Chaffin’s Bluff, Rootes ordered an increase in powder charges from 12 to 14 pounds for the rifled guns and a shift in position of the ships to just above Chaffin’s Bluff, with the result that the Confederate fire did indeed reach as far as Fort Harrison and succeeded in scattering Union troops there. From September 29 to October 1, 1864, the three ironclads and three gunboats, as well as Confederate batteries on the south side of the James manned by naval personnel, fired hundreds of rounds in support of the Confederate land forces north of that river. The Richmond alone fired 259 rounds during the three-day span. The ships provided accurate and effective fire and suffered little damage from Union return fires. The only casualties came in the bursting of the bow 7-inch Brooke rifled gun in the Fredericksburg on September 30 and the sinking of the supply ship Gallego; it was lost when it became fouled in the Virginia II’s anchor chain when the ironclad was getting under way on the afternoon of September 29 to join the other ships in the squadron. Although the Confederates failed in their effort to retake Fort Harrison, Rootes and Mitchell were convinced that the ships of the James River Squadron had played the decisive role in preventing Union soldiers from capturing Chaffin’s Bluff. Spencer C. Tucker See also Drewry’s Bluff, First Battle of; Flotilla; Ironclads, Confederate; James River; James River Squadron, CSA; Marine Corps, CSA; Mitchell, John Kirkwood; Naval Academy, Confederate; Richmond, CSS; Richmond, Virginia; Riverine Warfare; Trent’s Reach, Battle of

210 |â•‡ Fort Henry, Battle of

References Coski, John M. Capital Navy: The Men, Ships and Operations of the James River Squadron. Campbell, CA: Savas, 1996. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 10. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1900.

Fort Henry, Battle of Event Date: February 6, 1862 Fort on the Tennessee River, the capture of which was the first significant Union victory in the western theater during the Civil War. Because of its food production, mineral resources, manpower, and railroads, Tennessee was the key to the West. The Confederates enjoyed unity of command in the western theater under General Albert Sidney Johnston, while Union forces there were divided between the Department of the Missouri under Major General Henry W. Halleck and the Department of the Ohio commanded by Brigadier General Don Carlos Buell. Despite a twofold superiority in manpower, the two Union generals disagreed on strategy and claimed insufficient resources and logistical problems. Halleck’s subordinates, Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant, who commanded the Cairo Military District with 20,000 men, and Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote, who commanded the Western Flotilla, both wanted to attack Fort Henry on the Tennessee and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. This move would flank the powerful Confederate fortress at Columbus on the upper Mississippi and Confederate defenders at Bowling Green, Kentucky. Halleck saw the need to counter successes by Buell in Kentucky, and President Abraham Lincoln was also applying pressure. But what finally prompted him to act was an erroneous report that Confederate reinforcements were on their way west. On January 30, 1862, Halleck ordered Grant to take and hold Fort Henry. The Union expedition set out on February 2. Fort Henry covered three acres of ground in a solidly built five-sided earthwork parapet. Rifle pits extended to the river and two miles east toward Fort Donelson. Although it lay in a bend of the Tennessee River and commanded a straight stretch of water some three miles long, Henry was on low ground washed by the river and had higher terrain on both sides. Work to fortify the heights on the west bank, known as Fort Heiman after Henry’s second in command, Colonel Adolphus Heiman, was incomplete when the Union forces arrived. Brigadier General Lloyd TilghÂ�man commanded both Henry and Donelson. Fort Henry mounted 17 heavy guns: 12 faced the river and 5 guarded the land approaches. The fort had 8 32-pounders, 2 42-pounders, a 128-pounder Columbiad rifled gun, 5 long 18-pounder siege guns, and a 6-inch rifled gun.

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Lithograph depicting Union gunboats attacking and capturing Confederate Fort Henry on the Tennessee River, February 6, 1862. (Naval History and Heritage Command)

In early February 1862, the Tennessee was in flood and some of the land within the fort’s perimeter was two feet under water. The Confederates also had no ammunition for their 42-pounders, leaving only nine guns able to counter a water approach. Tilghman possessed only 2,610 men in two brigades under Colonels Heiman and Joseph Drake. Many were raw recruits who had only shotguns and hunting rifles, and some had only flintlocks. On February 2, the Union flotilla departed Cairo. Four ironclads led: the Cincinnati (flagship), Carondelet, Essex, and St. Louis. The transports followed, and a division of timberclads brought up the rear: the Conestoga, Lexington, and Tyler. Two lifts were necessary to transport all of Grant’s 17,000 men. Early on February 4, the Confederates learned of the Union advance. Tilghman immediately left Donelson to take up direction of Fort Henry’s defense. Although Tilghman telegraphed Major General Leonidas Polk at Columbus for reinforcements, none were sent. Grant debarked his troops some three miles from the fort and just beyond the range of its guns. He then returned to Paducah with the empty transports to hurry the second lift of Brigadier General Charles F. Smith’s division. Meanwhile, late on February 5, three of the Union gunboats approached Fort Henry and opened

212 |â•‡ Fort Henry, Battle of

fire, killing one defender and wounding three others. The Confederates replied with six shots and the gunboats withdrew. All Union troops were not ashore until the night of February 5, when it rained heavily. Although he did not yet have all his men in place, Grant believed that prompt action was imperative to prevent the Confederates from reinforcing. Grant ordered the advance to begin at 11:00 a.m. on February 6. Grant planned a simultaneous land and water attack. During the night of February 5, he sent Smith with two of his brigades along the west bank of the river to prevent any reinforcement from that direction, to cut off a Confederate escape, and to seize Fort Heiman for possible artillery emplacement. Smith’s men discovered the Confederates had already evacuated Heiman. The main Union land effort was on the east bank by Brigadier General John A. McClernand’s division with a brigade from Smith. On the night of February 5, Tilghman called together his officers. All were pessimistic, believing they could not withstand an attack by a force they estimated to number 25,000 men. At 10:00 a.m. on February 6, Tilghman ordered all defenders save the artillery company manning the batteries to withdraw to Fort Donelson. This left only about 100 men, including those too sick to move. Tilghman intended to delay the attackers long enough for the rest of his command to escape. At 10:50 a.m. the flotilla got under way, the ironclads forming in line abreast from right to left: the Essex, Cincinnati, Carondelet, and St. Louis. Because of the narrowness of the river, the last two gunboats were lashed together and remained so during the battle. A half mile behind them came Lieutenant Seth L. Phelps’s division of timberclads. As the flotilla neared Fort Henry there was no sign of the Union troops, and Foote decided to begin the battle alone. At 11:45 a.m., from about 1,700 yards range, the Cincinnati fired a shot, the signal for the other gunboats to open fire. At about a mile’s range, Taylor ordered the water battery to respond and firing then became general. Phelps’s division remained at long range, lobbing shells into the fort. Confederate fire was both lively and accurate. Although Fort Henry had only nine guns that could respond, the Rebel gunners did succeed in hitting all gunboats many times (59 hits in all) but most of the damage was slight save to the Essex; a Confederate shell tore into its middle boiler. The blast and steam killed or wounded 32 men, including Commander William D. Porter. The gunboat drifted out of control downriver but was towed to safety by a tug. A seaman was also killed and nine others wounded on board the Cincinnati. Another man aboard the Essex was killed by a musket ball. From the beginning, Union fire was quite accurate and the crews could see shell explosions throwing up earth around the Rebel guns. Then the 6-inch rifled gun blew up, killing or wounding all its crew, and a priming wire stuck in the vent of the 10-inch Columbiad, spiking it. Two 32-pounders were then struck at almost the same time.

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214 |â•‡ Fort Hindman, Battle of

With only four of his guns able to return fire and the Union gunboats sweeping the fort with their fire, at 2:00 p.m. Tilghman surrendered. He had saved the bulk of the garrison. Only 94 men, including Tilghman and 16 aboard a Confederate hospital boat, surrendered at Henry. Confederate personnel losses were only 5 dead, 11 wounded, and 5 missing. The victors did capture Henry’s guns as well as supplies and equipment abandoned by the garrison, which had retreated to Donelson on foot without wagons. The roads were mired in mud and the Union land force arrived at Henry only after the battle. McClernand did learn that the Confederates might be evacuating Henry and sent cavalry ahead to verify it. This detachment pursued the retreating Confederates, who were slowed by muddy roads, and captured six guns and 38 stragglers. But the first Union troops did not arrive at Fort Henry until an hour after its surrender. Immediately after the capture of Fort Henry, Grant called together his officers to discuss the possibility of taking Donelson. All declared in favor of moving against that Confederate position as soon as possible. Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Baron de Kalb, USS; Cairo-Class River Ironclads; Cairo Naval Station; Carondelet, USS; Cincinnati, USS; Conestoga, USS; Cumberland River; Eads, James Buchanan; Essex, USS; Flotilla; Foote, Andrew Hull; Fort Donelson, Battle of; Ironclads, Union; Lexington, USS; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Phelps, Seth Ledyard; Phelps’s Raid; Porter, William David; Riverine Warfare; Tennessee River; Timberclads; Tyler, USS

References Cooling, B. Franklin. Forts Henry and Donelson: The Key to the Confederate Heartland. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1987. Milligan, John D. Gunboats Down the Mississippi. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1965. Tucker, Spencer C. Andrew Foote: Civil War Admiral on Western Waters. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000. Tucker, Spencer C. Unconditional Surrender: The Capture of Forts Henry and Donelson. Abilene, TX: McWhiney Foundation Press, 2001.

Fort Hindman, Battle of Start Date: January 9, 1863 End Date: January 11, 1863 Diversionary Union attack prior to the resumption of the campaign against Vicksburg. Major General John McClernand, a political appointee without military background, was senior in rank to Major General William T. Sherman and, at the beginning of January 1863, took command from Sherman of army river operations

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against Vicksburg. Pompous, vain, and hoping for military glory and subsequent political gain, McClernand decided to send a sizable force up the Arkansas, the largest river emptying into the Mississippi. The goal was to destroy Confederate Fort Hindman, also known as Arkansas Post. Located some 50 miles from the river’s mouth and mounting 14 guns, Fort Hindman guarded the river approach to Little Rock, 117 miles to the north. Arkansas Post was an important staging area for Confederate raids threatening Union control of the Mississippi, and here Brigadier General Thomas J. Churchill commanded some 5,000 Confederate troops. A Union success at Fort Hindman would not only remove an important Confederate military threat but would also serve to restore lagging morale following the Chickasaw Bluffs reverse of late December. The expedition set out on January 4, with Rear Admiral David D. Porter heading the naval contingent of the ironclads Baron de Kalb, Louisville, and Cincinnati; ram Monarch; gunboats Black Hawk and Tyler; and the tinclads Rattler and Glide, all escorting a large number of transports carrying some 32,000 men. Following a feint against the White River, the flotilla headed up the Arkansas, arriving several miles from Arkansas Post on the evening of January 9. The troops then went ashore on both sides of the river in order to prevent the Confederates from either reinforcing or escaping. On the afternoon of January 10, Porter ordered the Baron de Kalb, Louisville, and Cincinnati to open fire on the Confederate breastworks. Porter then sent in the Rattler to fire on the rifle pits and breastworks, which were then silenced and occupied by Union troops. At 5:30 p.m., with the Union troops in position, Porter ordered in the three ironclads against the fort. Advancing to within 400 yards, they engaged the Confederate defenders. Directing operations from the steam tug Thistle, Porter next brought up the light-draft Lexington and Black Hawk to fire shrapnel. He ordered the Rattler to enfilade the fort, and it provided effective fire from that position, although it also sustained extensive damage from shore fire. Although the fort was largely silenced by the naval gunfire, it was too late in the day for the Union troops to attack. The next day, January 11, McClernand sent word to Porter that his men were waiting for the navy to attack, when they too would assault the fort. The Union warships then resumed their shelling, this time from very close range and including shrapnel. At about 4:00 p.m., with all of his guns save one out of commission, Colonel John W. Dunnington surrendered the fort to Porter. At the same time, Churchill surrendered the land forces to Sherman. Confederate losses in the Battle of Fort Hindman numbered about 150 dead and 4,791 prisoners. Union casualties apart from prisoners were heavier because the troops had been forced to assault entrenchments. The Union tally ashore amounted to 79 killed and 440 wounded. The ships sustained about 30 casualties. The Union troops destroyed what remained of the fort and its guns before rejoining the transports to return to Milliken’s Bend, about seven miles above Vicksburg.

216 |â•‡ Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s Run Past

McClernand strutted and sought to take full credit for the victory. Concerned over the damage McClernand might cause to Union operations, both Sherman and Porter urged Army of the Tennessee commander Major General Ulysses S. Grant to come and take personal command of Union operations against Vicksburg. Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Arkansas River; Baron de Kalb, USS; Black Hawk, USS; Cairo-Class River Ironclads; Chickasaw Bluffs, Battle of; Cincinnati, USS; Flotilla; Ironclads, Union; Lexington, USS; Louisville, USS; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Porter, David Dixon; Riverine Warfare; Timberclads; Tinclads; Tyler, USS; Vicksburg Campaign

References Ballard, Michael B. Vicksburg: The Campaign That Opened the Mississippi. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. Bearss, Edwin Cole. The Campaign for Vicksburg: Vicksburg Is the Key. Dayton, OH: Morningside, 1985. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. Winschel, Terrance J. Vicksburg: Fall of the Confederate Gibraltar. Abilene, TX: McWhiney Foundation Press, 1999.

Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s Run Past Event Date: April 24, 1862 The capture of New Orleans was a key element in the Lincoln administration’s Anaconda Plan. New Orleans was the Confederacy’s most important seaport and its largest and wealthiest city. Beyond denying to the South this outlet for the shipment of cotton, securing the entire Mississippi would open the river to oceanic shipping for goods from the Northwest, as well as split off the trans-Mississippi West from the remainder of the Confederacy. Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gustavus V. Fox was the strongest proponent of an assault on the Crescent City. He believed that Union victories at Port Royal, South Carolina, and Hatteras Inlet, North Carolina, had proved that steam warships could successfully engage and defeat shore forts and that Union ships could defeat Confederate forts Jackson and St. Philip, which guarded the southern approach to New Orleans along the Mississippi. Commander David D. Porter convinced Fox and Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles that bombardment of the forts by a flotilla of mortar boats would be essential to success of the plan. He pledged that both forts would be rendered ineffective, if not destroyed, within 48 hours of shelling from large 13-inch mortars. President Lincoln gave his endorsement. General in chief Major General George B. McClellan was opposed, that is until he learned that the operation was to be

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Lithograph, published by Currier & Ives in 1862. The print depicts the ships of Union Flag Officer David Farragut’s squadron proceeding up the Mississippi River on April 24, 1862 past the Confederate forts and gunboats to capture New Orleans the next day. (Naval History and Heritage Command)

essentially borne by the navy with only about 10,000 troops required to garrison the city and its forts once the navy had forced their surrender. In December, Welles called Captain David G. Farragut to Washington and offered him command of the operation, which Farragut immediately accepted. Porter received command of the mortar flotilla. Farragut took as his flagship the screw sloop Hartford and arrived at Ship Island in Mississippi Sound on February 20, 1862. Farragut spent nearly a month preparing for the expedition, ultimately assembling 17 ships mounting 192 guns. The most powerful of these were 8 steam sloops and corvettes: the Brooklyn (26 guns), Hartford (28 guns), Iroquois (11 guns), Mississippi (22 guns), Oneida (10 guns), Pensacola (25 guns), Richmond (22 guns), and Varuna (11 guns). These ships mounted in all 154 guns. There were also 9 gunboats: the Cayuga (4 guns), Itasca (4 guns), Katahdin (4 guns), Kennebec (4 guns), Kineo (4 guns), Pinola (5 guns), Sciota (5 guns), Winona (4 guns), and Wissahickon (4 guns). Farragut also had Porter’s squadron of 20 mortar schooners, each mounting a single 13-inch mortar. Major General Benjamin F. Butler commanded the 13,000 soldiers who would accompany the expedition. On April 16, following careful planning and preparations, Farragut moved his ships from the Gulf into the Mississippi River estuary, just below and out of range


of the river forts. Once the ships had passed the forts, Butler’s troops were to join the squadron by means of a bayou about five miles upriver. Welles hoped that Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote and his Union naval forces on the upper Mississippi would steam south and join Farragut at New Orleans. If that proved impossible, Farragut was to proceed north as far as possible. Confederate leaders in Richmond bore considerable responsibility for subsequent events. They believed that the chief threat to New Orleans was from the north and thus sent there the scant resources available. This same attitude contributed to the failure to complete the Confederate ironclads Louisiana and Mississippi that were under construction at Jefferson City just north of New Orleans. Major General Mansfield Lovell had charge of the New Orleans defenses. Initially commanding 6,000 men, he had expressed confidence that he could hold the city against any land attack. By early April, however, more than half of his men and much equipment had been siphoned off from New Orleans to Corinth, Mississippi, to challenge Major General Ulysses S. Grant’s forces at Pittsburg Landing. Another major problem lay in a divided command structure that included multiple army and navy commanders. Thus, Brigadier General Johnson Kelly Duncan, not Lovell, commanded Forts St. Philip and Jackson. The naval command was even more fractious. Despite the paucity of Confederate manpower facing them, it would not be easy for Union forces to ascend the Mississippi. The Union ships would first have to pass the Confederate forts. Fort Jackson was a stone and mortar star-shaped works mounting 74 guns and situated some 100 yards from the levee on the west bank of the river. Fort St. Philip, mounting 52 guns, and located about a half mile upstream on the opposite bank, was of brick and stone covered with sod. High water in the river had flooded portions of both works, but Confederate engineers worked around the clock to control the water and strengthen the two installations against attack. Another liability was that the 1,100 men in the forts were inexperienced and largely untrained. This would impact the fighting, especially in conditions of poor visibility. On the river itself, the Confederates assembled only 14 warships, most of which were small. They mounted a total of only 40 guns. There was no unity of command, and the vessels were in three major divisions. Captain John A. Stephenson commanded the Confederate River Defense Fleet of six small converted river tugs mounting a total of 7 guns and fitted with iron-reinforced prows for ramming. These were the Defense, General Breckinridge, General Lovell, Resolute, Stonewall Jackson, and Warrior. Stephenson was a Confederate Army officer who reputedly disliked naval officers and refused to obey orders of the senior Confederate naval officer in the lower Mississippi, Commander John K. Mitchell. The Louisiana State Navy provided two side-wheeler gunboats in the Governor Moore and General Quitman. They mounted two guns each, while the Confederate Navy contributed six warships under Mitchell: the gunboats CSS McRae (eight


guns) and Jackson (two guns) and the launches No. 3 and No. 6 (one gun apiece). The other two ships were the ironclads Manassas and Louisiana, but only the ram Manassas with a single gun was operational at the time of the Union assault. The Louisiana posed the only real naval threat to the ships of Farragut’s West Gulf Blockading Squadron, and many in the Crescent City regarded it as the strongest defense for the city, after the forts. The 1,400-ton Louisiana was 264 feet in length and protected by four-inch railroad rail iron. Unfortunately for the South, the ship was not yet ready when Union forces began their attack. Nonetheless, when Porter’s mortars opened up on the forts, Mitchell had it towed down river with mechanics still working on it. The ship was then moored to the shore north of Fort St. Philip as a floating fort. Soldiers drawn from the Crescent Artillery worked its 16 guns. Stephenson also had ordered fire rafts prepared so that they might be set loose in the current against any Union ships advancing upriver. Although the river was too swift and deep for obstructions, Lovell advocated and the Confederates built a river barrier. It consisted of two long chains formed from those of ships idled at New Orleans. Seven anchored hulks supported the chains, which passed across the river, over the forward part and amidships of the hulks, from Fort Jackson to the opposite shore. Assembling off Pass a l’Outre, by mid-March all the heavier Union warships were able to pass over the bar with assistance from Porter’s steamers. A month later, all the other ships had assembled at Ship Island along with Butler’s troops. On April 15, Farragut gave the order for the operation to begin. On the evening of April 18, Porter’s 20 mortar boats, towed into position by 7 steamers and moored along the riverbank some 3,000 yards from Fort Jackson where they were protected by a bend of the river and woods, opened a bombardment. For six days and nights the mortars fired 16,800 shells, almost all of them at the fort, without notable result. The problem seems to have been the fusing, the shells either burst in air or buried themselves in the soft earth before exploding without major effect. Although the mortar shells did dismount some of the guns in Fort Jackson, most of the Confederate crews bravely kept to their positions and were able to remount the guns. Indeed, Confederate counterbattery fire on April 19 sank the mortar schooner Maria J. Carlton, killing and wounding some Union sailors. The Confederates also sent fire rafts down the river at night, but Union boat crews grappled these and towed them off without damage. Farragut knew that too much delay would have a negative effect and on the night of April 20, while Porter’s mortars kept up a steady fire so as to distract the gun crews in the Confederate forts, he sent the screw gunboats Itasca and Pinola against the river obstructions. Under heavy but inaccurate Confederate fire, the Union crews worked to open a gap through which the squadron might pass. An attempt to blow up one of the hulks with an electronically detonated torpedo (mine) failed, but some of the men of the Itasca managed to break the chains with


a chisel, opening a passage that Farragut thought would be sufficient for his ships to pass through. The Union crews, meanwhile, prepared their ships. The men landed anything that might be a potential fire hazard or inhibit smooth operations, including extra spars, rigging, boats, and all but a few sails. They also strung heavy iron cable chains on the outsides of the ships to provide additional protection to the most vulnerable areas housing the engines and steam boilers. These acted as a kind of chain mail armor. They also packed around the boilers bags of ashes, extra clothing, sand, and anything else readily available. Clearly, protecting the boilers was the major concern. Clouds of steam from a punctured boiler could inflict heavy personnel casualties. Also, such an event could immobilize the vessel, perhaps jeopardizing the entire operation. The crews also worked to distribute weight so that the ships would draw more water forward than aft. This was so that if a vessel grounded while heading upstream, the bow would strike bottom first and the ship would not be turned around by the swift current. The crews also whitewashed their vessels’ decks so that the gunners’ tools would stand out more clearly at night; at the same time, they gave the hulls a coating of oil and mud to render them more difficult to distinguish from the shore. On April 22, Farragut met with his subordinate commanders to discuss his plans in detail. The ships were to proceed single file through the obstructions. Porter’s mortars would provide covering fire to occupy the Confederate gun crews and hopefully drive them from their guns. Once the ships had passed the forts, Butler’s troops would be put ashore at Quarantine from the Gulf side through that bayou, allowing the Union land and naval forces to move in tandem to New Orleans. Farragut reserved the option of reducing the forts, but instructed his captains that, unless otherwise ordered, they were to steam past them. The prevailing view among the captains, freely stated during the meeting, was that the risk was such that any attempt should be delayed until the mortars had reduced the forts. Farragut demurred. Porter would soon run short of shells, and his men were exhausted from the bombardment that had already extended over six days and seven nights. Farragut informed the captains that, given these considerations, he had decided on an attempt that very night. The attack was delayed for 24 hours, however, on pleas by two of the captains that they were not yet ready. Soon after midnight on April 24, the crews were awakened, and the squadron got under way. The ships then moved upriver in two divisions to approach the opening in the obstructions made earlier. Captain Theodorus Bailey commanded the first division of the Cayuga, Pensacola, Mississippi, Oneida, Varuna, Katahdin, Kineo, and Wissahickon. The center (second) division, under Farragut, consisted of the Hartford, Brooklyn, and Richmond. The third division, commanded by Captain Henry H. Bell, included the Sciota, Iroquois, Kennebec, Pinola, Itasca, and Winona.


The Cayuga was the first ship through the water barrier at about 3:30 a.m. The Confederates did not discover the Cayuga until about 10 minutes later, when it was well under Fort Jackson. Understandably, General Duncan at Fort Jackson subsequently complained that Mitchell had failed to send any fire rafts to light the river at night, nor had he stationed any vessel below the forts to warn of the Union approach. The different naval commands and lack of cooperation between land and naval commanders indeed proved costly for the defenders. As soon as they spotted the Cayuga, gunners at both Confederate forts opened up almost simultaneously, with the Union ships in position to do so immediately replying. Soon the river surface was filled with clouds of thick smoke from the discharges of the guns. This smoke obscured vision from both the ships and the shore, but on balance it favored the ships. Porter, meanwhile, had brought forward the five steamers assigned to his mortar schooners and these opened up an enfilading fire at some 200 yards from Fort Jackson, pouring into it grape, canister, and shrapnel shell, while the mortars added their shells. This fire did drive many of the Confederate gun crews from their guns and reduced the effectiveness of those who remained. The Pensacola, the second Union ship through the obstacles, was slow to get under way, and this meant that for some time the Cayuga faced the full fury of the Confederate fire alone. Lieutenant George H. Perkins, piloting the Cayuga, had the presence of mind to note that the Confederate guns had been laid so as to concentrate fire on the middle of the river and therefore took his ship closer to the walls of Fort St. Philip. Although its masts and rigging were shot up, the hull largely escaped damage. The captain of the Pensacola, Captain Henry W. Morris, apparently interpreted Farragut’s orders to mean that he was to engage the forts. Halting his ship in the middle of the obstructions, he let loose a broadside against Fort St. Philip, driving the gun crews onshore to safety. On clearing the obstructions, he ordered a second broadside against the fort. But stopping the Pensacola dead in the water made it an ideal target. It took nine shots in the hull, and its rigging and masts were also much cut up. The Pensacola also suffered 4 killed and 33 wounded, more than any other Union ship in the operation that day. The leading division continued upriver, engaging targets as they presented themselves. The remaining Union ships followed, firing grape and canister as well as round shot. The shore batteries had difficulty finding the range, and damage and casualties aboard these vessels were slight. About 4:00 a.m., the Confederate Navy warships above the forts joined the battle. The most powerful of these, the McRae, lay anchored along the shore 300 yards above Fort St. Philip when its lookouts spotted the Cayuga. Lieutenant Thomas B. Huger, captain of the McRae, ordered cables slipped and fire opened. The McRae opened up with its port battery and pivot gun, but the latter burst on its 10th round.


The Cayuga continued upriver, passing the McRae. Two other Union ships, the Varuna and Oneida, then exited the smoke and steamed past the McRae without firing on it, probably taking it for a Union gunboat. Huger ordered his vessel to sheer first to port and then to starboard, delivering two broadsides. The Varuna and Oneida also sheered and returned fire. Each of these ships mounted two XI-inch Dahlgrens in pivot and these guns soon told. The explosion of one Union shell started a fire in the McRae, and only desperate efforts by the crew kept the blaze from reaching the magazine. Although most of the remaining lightly armed Confederate warships fled upriver on the approach of the Union ships, this was not the case with the ram Manassas. Although his ship was armed with only a single 32-pounder, Lieutenant Alexander Warley was determined to attack, even alone. Warley understood that the only chance for a Confederate victory lay in an immediate combined assault by the gunboats and fire rafts to immobilize the Union vessels long enough for the heavy guns in the forts to destroy them. The Manassas lay moored to the east bank of the river above Fort St. Philip, when flashes in the vicinity of the obstacles indicated action in progress. Warley immediately ordered his ship to get under way. He attempted to ram the Pensacola, but skillful maneuvering by the Union pilot avoided a collision, and the Pensacola let loose with a broadside from its IX-inch Dahlgren guns as the Manassas passed. Damaged in the exchange, the Confederate ram nonetheless continued on. Warley then spotted the side-wheeler Mississippi. Lieutenant George Dewey tried to turn his ship so as to ram the onrushing Manassas, but the latter proved more agile than the Union paddle wheeler and was able to strike the Mississippi a glancing blow on its port side, opening a large hole there but failing to fatally damage the Mississippi. As the Union ships cleared the forts, they came under fire from the Confederate ironclad Louisiana along the riverbank. Its gun ports were small and did not allow a wide arc of fire, so the gun crews scored few hits. Proceeding north, the leading Cayuga overtook some of the fleeing Confederate vessels and fired into them. Three of the Confederate gunboats struck their colors and ran ashore. The Varuna and Oneida soon came up, but in the confusion sailors in the Varuna mistook the Cayuga for a Confederate vessel and fired a broadside into it. Impatient with the Pensacola’s slow progress, meanwhile, Farragut ordered the Hartford to pass it and then climbed into the mizzen rigging so as to secure a better view over the smoke. As the Hartford proceeded upriver, Farragut saw a fire raft blazing off the port bow, pushed forward by the unarmed Confederate tug Moser. Farragut ordered his own ship to turn to starboard, but it was too close to the shore and its bow immediately grounded hard in a mud bank, allowing Captain Horace Sherman of the Moser to position the raft against the Hartford’s port side. The blaze soon ignited the paint on the side of the Union vessel, which then caught the rigging. With his ship on fire and immobilized, Farragut thought it was doomed.


Fortunately, the gunners at Fort St. Philip were unable to fire into the now stationary target as the fleet’s fire had dismounted one of the fort’s largest guns and another could not be brought to bear. Farragut came down out of the rigging to the deck where he exhorted the Hartford’s crew to fight the fire. Gunfire from the flagship, meanwhile, sank the Moser. Farragut’s clerk, Bradley Osbon, brought up three shells, unscrewed their fuses, and dropped them over the gunwale of the Hartford into the fire raft. The resulting explosions tore holes in the raft and sank it, extinguishing the flames. With the raft gone, the Hartford’s crew was able to extinguish the fires. The men cheered as their ship backed free of the mud bank and resumed course upriver. In the confusion and smoke, accidents occurred. The gunboat Kineo collided with the sloop Brooklyn; although seriously damaged, the Kineo was able to continue on past the forts. The Brooklyn, meanwhile, plowed into one of the Confederate hulks, then suddenly ground to a halt just north of the obstructions, its anchor caught in the hulk and hawser taut. The river current then turned the sloop broadside to Fort St. Philip. With the gunners ashore having found the range and the Brooklyn taking hits, a crewman managed to cut the cable and free the sloop. Captain Thomas T. Craven of the Brooklyn ordered it to pass close to Fort St. Philip, the sloop firing three broadsides into the Confederate works as it steamed past. The Brooklyn then passed the Louisiana at very close quarters. In the exchange of fire, a Confederate shell struck the Union ship just above the waterline but failed to explode. Later, the Brooklyn’s crew discovered that the Confederate gunners had failed to remove the lead patch from the fuse. Smoke from the firing was now so thick that it was virtually impossible to see and take bearings. Craven merely conned his ship in the direction of the noise and flashes of light ahead. But the tide carried the sloop over on the lee shore, perfectly positioned for the guns of Fort Jackson. As the sloop touched bottom, Craven saw the Manassas emerge from the smoke. Warley had previously tried to ram the Hartford without success. The Manassas had taken a number of Union shell hits and its smokestack was riddled and speed sharply reduced. Warley decided to take the ram down river to attack Porter’s now unprotected mortar boats. But when the Confederate forts mistakenly opened up with their heavy guns on the Manassas, Warley decided to return upriver. At that point he spotted the Brooklyn lying athwart the river and headed for Fort Jackson. Warley ordered resin thrown into his ship’s furnaces to produce maximum speed and maneuvered the ram so as to pin the Brooklyn against the riverbank. Seamen aboard the Brooklyn spotted the ram’s approach and gave the alarm. Craven ordered the sloop’s helm turned, but this could only lessen, not avoid, the impact. Only moments before the collision, a shot from the Manassas crashed into the Brooklyn but was stopped by sandbags piled around the steam drum. The Manassas struck the Union ship at a slight angle, crushing several planks and driving in the chain that had been protecting the ship’s side. Craven was certain


his ship would go down, but the chain and a full coal bunker helped lessen the impact. Meanwhile, the Manassas disengaged and resumed its progress upriver. The tail of Farragut’s force, Porter’s mortar flotilla, was also under way. When his vessels came under fire as they approached Fort Jackson, Porter ordered the mortar boats to stop and open fire. This was about 4:20 a.m. The mortars fired for about a half hour, sufficient time it was thought for the remainder of the Union squadron to have cleared the forts. However, when Porter signaled a halt, some of the Union ships were still engaging the forts. In the thick smoke the Wissahickon, the last ship in the first division, grounded. As the sun rose, Lieutenant Albert N. Smith, the Wissahickon’s captain, discovered he was near three third-division ships, the Iroquois, Sciota, and Pinola, but also in the vicinity of the Confederate gunboat McRae, soon hotly engaged with the much more powerful Iroquois. The McRae was badly damaged in the exchange and Lieutenant Huger was mortally wounded; 3 men were killed outright and another 17 were wounded. At this point the Manassas came on the scene. Warley tried without success to ram first the Iroquois and then the other Union ships. Realizing the danger if their ships were to be disabled close to the Confederate forts, the Union captains then broke off firing on the McRae and resumed their passage upriver. Three of Farragut’s ships failed to make it past the forts. The Kennebec and Itasca ran afoul of the river obstructions. In an effort to back clear, the Itasca then collided with the Winona. The Itasca then took a 42-pounder shot through its boiler and had to abandon the effort. The Winona was able to retire before dawn. The Kennebec, caught between the two Confederate forts at daybreak, also withdrew. Fourteen of the 17 ships in Farragut’s squadron had made it past the forts, however. Farragut lost one ship, the screw steamer Varuna, in the first division. At about 4:00 a.m., Lieutenant Beverly Kennon of the Louisiana state gunboat Governor Moore spotted the Varuna, which was faster than its sister ships and was advancing alone. Kennon immediately ordered the Governor Moore to attack; but in order to reach the Varuna, it was obliged to run a hail of shot and shell from the other Union ships, which cut it up badly and killed and wounded a number of its crew. But the exchange of fire also produced so much smoke that the Confederate gunboat was able to escape and follow the Varuna upriver. Some 600 yards ahead of the trailing Union ships, the Governor Moore trailed the Varuna by 100 yards. The Union warship engaged its adversary with its stern chaser gun and repeatedly tried to sheer, so as to get off a broadside, but Kennon carefully mirrored the motions of his adversary and was thus able to avoid this. Nonetheless, the Governor Moore took considerable punishment. Shot from the Varuna’s stern chaser killed or wounded most of the crewmen on the Confederate vessel’s forecastle. With his own ship then only 40 yards from his adversary and his bow 32-pounder unable to bear because of the close range, Kennon ordered the


gun’s muzzle depressed to fire a shell at the Union warship through his own ship’s deck. This round had a devastating effect, raking the Varuna. Kennon ordered a second shell fired, with similar result. With the two ships only about 10 feet apart and after firing a round from its after pivot gun, the Varuna sheered to starboard so as to loose a broadside, but Kennon could see the Union ship’s mastheads above the smoke and guessed what was intended. Swinging his own ship hard to port, he smashed it into the Union vessel. The Governor Moore then backed off and rammed the Varuna again, taking a full broadside from the Union ship in the process that made casualties of most of the Confederates on the weather deck. Shortly thereafter, however, another Confederate warship, the Stonewall Jackson, appeared and rammed the Varuna on its opposite, port, side. This blow produced such damage that the Varuna’s pumps were unable to keep it afloat, and Commander Charles S. Boggs ran his ship ashore. Having absorbed two broadsides from the mortally wounded Union vessel, the Stonewall Jackson was itself in a sinking state, and its captain ordered it also run ashore and burned to prevent capture. As he watched the Varuna ground, Kennon was faced with a new problem in the remaining rapidly closing Union ships, which soon subjected the Confederate gunboat to a devastating fire. His own ship in danger of going down in the river, Kennon grounded it just above the stricken Varuna and ordered it fired. The casualty toll on the Governor Moore was appalling. Fifty-seven men had been killed in action and 7 more wounded out of a crew of 93. As dawn broke, between 5:30 and 6:00 a.m., the Union ships assembled at Quarantine Station. At this point the Manassas suddenly appeared, heading for the squadron. Standing on the hurricane deck of the Mississippi, Lieutenant Dewey saw the Hartford, blackened from the recent fire, steaming by. Farragut was in its rigging and calling out “Run down the ram!” But when Warley saw the extent of his opposition, he knew the battle was over. The speed of the Manassas was now so much reduced and it had sustained such damage that an attack would have been suicidal. Warley headed his ship ashore and ordered his crew to scatter. The battle for the lower Mississippi was over. With the Union fleet past the forts and the Confederate gunboats destroyed, there was now no barrier between Farragut’s squadron and New Orleans. Union casualties had been surprisingly light: the total from April 18 to April 26 was just 39 killed and 171 wounded. Farragut reported to Porter: “We had a rough time of it .â•¯.â•¯. but thank God the number of killed and wounded was very small considering.” Spencer C. Tucker See also Anaconda Strategy; Bailey, Theodorus; Bell, Henry Haywood; Blockade Board; Blockade of the Confederacy; Brooklyn, USS; Craven, Thomas Tingey; Dewey, George; Farragut, David Glasgow; Foote, Andrew Hull; Floating Battery; Flotilla; Fox, Gustavus Vasa; Gulf of Mexico; Hartford, USS; Hatteras Inlet, Union Assault on; Lincoln, Abraham;

226 |â•‡ Fort McAllister, Georgia, Union Attacks on Louisiana, CSS; Manassas, CSS; Mississippi, CSS; Mississippi, USS; Mississippi River; Mississippi River Defense Fleet; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Mitchell, John Kirkwood; Mortar Boats; New Orleans, Louisiana; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; Porter, David Dixon; Port Royal Sound, Battle of; Richmond, USS; Riverine Warfare; Ship Island, Mississippi; Strategy, Union Naval; Torpedoes; Welles, Gideon; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Duffy, James P. Lincoln’s Admiral: The Civil War Campaigns of David Farragut. New York: Wiley, 1997. Osbon, Bradley S., and Albert Bigelow Paine. A Soldier of Fortune: Personal Memoirs of Captain B. S. Osbon. New York: McClure, Phillips, 1906. Porter, David Dixon. The Naval History of the Civil War. 1886; reprint, New York: Dover, 1998. Schneller, Robert J., Jr. Farragut: America’s First Admiral. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 2002. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 18. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1904.

Fort McAllister, Georgia, Union Attacks on Event Date: 1863 In planning his attack on Charleston, South Carolina, Rear Admiral Samuel F. Du Pont, commanding the U.S. Navy South Atlantic Coast Blockading Squadron, was concerned not only about the number of ironclads he would have available for the assault, but their mechanical problems and growing doubts within the navy of the ability of these ships to destroy shore fortifications. He also wanted to give the new XV-inch Dahlgren guns a combat test. To accomplish these ends, he selected Fort McAllister on the Ogeechee River in Georgia, a Confederate earthwork fortification mounting eight or nine guns. On January 27, 1863, Du Pont sent against McAllister Commander John L. Worden and the newly arrived Passaic-class monitor Montauk; the gunboats Seneca, Wissahickon, and Dawn; and the mortar schooner C. P. Williams. The Montauk was unable to close with the fort because of sunken obstacles apparently protected by torpedoes (naval mines). It nonetheless fired 52 shells and shot from its XI- and XV-inch Dahlgrens during a 4.5-hour period, but without noticeable effect. Worden reported accurate Confederate return fire. His own ship was struck 14 times, but it suffered no damage other than the loss of its cutter. The next day, a runaway slave provided information on the location of the torpedoes that had blocked the Montauk’s approach the day before, and, after taking on

Fort McAllister, Georgia, Union Attacks onâ•‡ | 227

a fresh supply of ammunition, Worden returned on February 1 with the Montauk and its same consorts. This time the monitor was able to close to only 600 yards before commencing fire. Each side reported accurate fire on the other, and the monitor took 48 hits in the course of a four-hour exchange. Although the Montauk was not seriously damaged, the Confederate fort was also unbowed. Plainly worried over the Montauk’s unsatisfactory forays, Du Pont wrote a friend, “If one ironclad cannot take eight guns, how are five to take 147 guns in Charleston harbor?” On February 18, Du Pont sent the Montauk back to Fort McAllister for a third time, this time to destroy the Confederate cruiser Nashville. Seized at Charleston at the beginning of the war and converted from a passenger steamer into a commerce raider, the Nashville had been active in European waters from November 1861 to February 1862 and taken two prizes. In 1862 it had been converted into a blockaderunner and, for nearly nine months, had been awaiting an opportunity to run the blockade, only to run aground in the Ogeechee near McAllister. The Montauk fired on the Nashville from a range of only 1,200 yards, setting the Confederate ship on fire and destroying it. Fort McAllister in turn fired on the Montauk, hitting it five times but without material result. In departing the area, however, a torpedo exploded against the hull of the Montauk, which required several weeks to repair. Du Pont ordered a fourth attack on Fort McAllister on March 3. This time he sent the monitors Passaic, Patapsco, and Nahant, along with the gunboats Seneca, Wissahickon, and Dawn, accompanied by three mortar schooners. Captain Percival Drayton of the Passaic, who led the assault, reported that although, as before, the monitors were practically unscathed by the fort’s fire, the only damage to the fort could easily be repaired overnight. The inconclusive nature of these engagements encouraged Charleston’s defenders, who now tended to denigrate the monitors. In spite of their ability to withstand punishment, it took nearly seven minutes to ready one of the giant 15-inch guns for firing, slowing its paired 11-incher to the same rate. This slow rate of fire rendered these ships simply incapable of inflicting in a short span of time the sort of damage necessary to reduce shore fortifications. This would be especially true against Charleston. Spencer C. Tucker See also Blockade-Runners; Charleston, South Carolina; Charleston, South Carolina, Du Pont’s Attack on; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Dahlgren Guns; Drayton, Percival; Du Pont, Samuel Francis; Ironclads, Union; Montauk, USS; Nashville, CSS, Cruiser; Naval Ordnance; Passaic-Class Monitors; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Torpedoes; Worden, John Lorimer

References Du Pont, Samuel F. Samuel F. Du Pont: A Selection from His Civil War Letters. 3 vols. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1969. Johnson, Robert Erwin. Rear Admiral John Rodgers, 1812–1882. Annapolis, MD: U.S. Naval Institute, 1967.

228 |â•‡ Fort Monroe,Virginia Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 13. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1901.

Fort Monroe, Virginia The only U.S. military installation in Virginia that the Union retained throughout the entirety of the Civil War. Named after President James Monroe, Fort Monroe was built between 1819 and 1834 to serve as part of the U.S. coastal defenses. Once completed, it covered 63 acres on Old Point Comfort at the end of the Virginia Peninsula, adjacent to Hampton Roads and jutting toward the Chesapeake Bay. The fort was constructed of stone and brick and had an eight-foot-deep moat. Strategically located, Fort Monroe guarded the channel to Hampton Roads and dominated the lower Chesapeake Bay. Its powerful batteries enforced the Union blockade of Southern ports by closing Hampton Roads and the James River to shipping. After Virginia’s secession on April 17, 1861, the Union was acutely aware of the vital importance of Fort Monroe to control the peninsula and its surrounding waterways. Washington immediately dispatched additional cannon, supplies, and troops to strengthen the fort against Confederate attack. Within six weeks, its small garrison of 400 men had swelled to nearly 4,500. The fort became the headquarters for the Union Department of Virginia under Major General Benjamin Butler, who assumed command on May 18, 1861. He was superseded by Major General John E. Wool on August 8, 1861. The fort also served as the headquarters for the Union Army of the James created in April 1864. Fort Monroe played a pivotal role in slavery as a wartime issue. Shortly after Butler assumed command, three slaves escaped into Union lines. Butler refused to return the slaves as justified under the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. He claimed that the law was null and void within the Confederacy. Butler declared the runaways “contrabands of war” and assigned them to support Union operations. The fort quickly became known as “Freedom’s Fortress.” Soon, contraband camps were established outside the fort’s walls to house hundreds of slaves who arrived there. Fort Monroe’s position southeast of Richmond made it the ideal staging area for land and naval expeditions against the Confederacy. On June 10, 1861, Union forces at the nearby towns of Hampton and Newport News, Virginia, advanced inland, resulting in the Battle of Big Bethel (June 10, 1861). Major General George McClellan used the fortress as a staging area for his Peninsula Campaign of March–August 1862 in which his troops attempted to take Richmond. On March 9, the first battle of ironclad warships in history was fought on the waters off the point in Hampton Roads, between CSS Virginia and USS Monitor.

Fort Morgan, Alabamaâ•‡ | 229

Unsuccessful peace talks between President Abraham Lincoln and Confederate vice president Alexander Stephens occurred aboard the steamer River Queen in the waters off Hampton Roads on February 3, 1865. At the conclusion of the war, Fort Monroe served as the prison for Confederate president Jefferson Davis, who was held there for two years. Donna Smith See also Amphibious Warfare; Blockade of the Confederacy; Davis, Jefferson Finis; Hampton Roads, Battle of; James River; James River Squadron, CSA; Lincoln, Abraham; Monitor, USS; Norfolk Navy Yard; Richmond, Virginia; Strategy, Union Naval; Trent’s Reach, Battle of; Virginia, CSS

References Quarstein, John V., and Dennis P. Mroczkowski. Fort Monroe: The Key to the South. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2000. Weinert, Richard P., and Robert Arthur. Defender of the Chesapeake: The Story of Fort Monroe. Shippensburg, PA: White Mane, 1989.

Fort Morgan, Alabama Confederate fort located at the tip of Mobile Point, a long neck of land that jutted out into Mobile Bay in Alabama and controlled its entrance from the east. Fort Morgan was the principal Confederate position and by far the most powerful of the three forts guarding Mobile Bay. The fort was named in honor of Revolutionary War hero Brigadier General Daniel Morgan and had been continuously used as a redoubt since the French first garrisoned the site in 1699. Construction on Fort Morgan, supervised by the U.S. Army, began at this site in 1819 and was completed in early 1834. Fort Morgan’s Civil War history is rooted chiefly in the naval battle of Mobile Bay on August 5, 1864. Pentagonal-shaped Fort Morgan was built in what was considered a classic European style, with smooth embankments sloping upward toward a series of brick walls that covered the fort’s main ramparts. Located within this series of embankments and stout brick walls was a 10-sided brick and mortar building in the center of the fort known as the citadel. On the landward side of the fort, fields and trees were cleared to provide long-distance sighting in order to protect the more vulnerable land-facing rear of the structure. The fort mounted 40 guns, including 7 10-inch Columbiads, and another 29 guns were located in exterior batteries. In January 1861, three months before the Civil War began, local militiamen seized the fort in anticipation of the conflict. State soldiers manned the redoubt for two months before its garrison passed to the Confederacy. For the next three years, Fort Morgan helped cover Southern blockade-runners and protected Mobile

230 |â•‡ Fort Morgan, Alabama

Photograph showing damage to the south side of Fort Morgan at the tip of Mobile Point following the Battle of Mobile Bay in August 1864. (National Archives)

and Mobile Bay from Union attacks. Southern control of the fort ended with the August 1864 Battle of Mobile Bay. The battle began when Union rear admiral David Farragut landed troops to attack the fort on the morning of August 5, 1864. Fort Morgan’s masonry and brick walls initially held up well against Farragut’s naval bombardment, but the Union shelling soon began to take its toll. Eventually, the citadel that housed the garrison caught fire and burned. Meanwhile, by the middle of the month, the fort’s walls were crumbling under the incessant Union artillery barrage. On August 23, 1864, Fort Morgan’s commander, Brigadier General Richard L. Page, surrendered. Union forces then took over what remained of the fort. On March 17, 1865, Union forces under Major General Gordon Granger used it as a base from which to launch an assault on Fort Blakely, located near the city of Mobile. Following the war, Fort Morgan was rebuilt (minus the large citadel), and it saw service as an active fort well into the 1890s. It was designated as a national historic landmark in 1960. The fort is presently on the list of the nation’s 10 most endangered battle sites. Jeannine Loftus and Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr. See also Amphibious Warfare; Blockade of the Confederacy; Blockade-Runners; Buchanan, Franklin; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Farragut, David Glasgow; Florida, CSS; Mobile, Alabama; Mobile, Siege of; Mobile Bay; Mobile Bay, Battle of

References Bergeron, Arthur W., Jr. Confederate Mobile. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1991. Williams, David. A Peoples History of the Civil War: Struggles for the Meaning of Freedom. New York: New Press, 2005.

Fort Pickens, Floridaâ•‡ | 231

Fort Pickens, Florida A brick fort built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers between 1829 and 1834 and located on the western tip of Santa Rosa Island at the entrance to Pensacola Bay in the Florida panhandle. Fort Pickens, named for popular Revolutionary War brigadier general Andrew Pickens, was built to guard the eastern edge of the bay entrance. It was part of the Third System of coastal defenses built after the War of 1812. At the time of the Civil War, Fort Pickens was a five-sided fort with corner bastions that allowed defenders to fire on anyone that approached its walls too closely. It was also a multilevel fort. One level of guns was positioned to fire from within masonry rooms in the fort’s walls known as casemates; another tier of guns could fire over the fort’s walls. Two other forts, McRee and Barrancas, completed the defenses of Pensacola Bay. All three forts were part of the Third System. Upon secession from the Union, leaders of the Deep South states believed that they should control all the military institutions within their states. But by the time Florida seceded on January 10, 1861, U.S. Army lieutenant Adam Slemmer, commanding the 46-man Fort Barrancas garrison, had decided that his men could not defend the fort properly. The day Florida left the Union, Slemmer moved his garrison to Fort Pickens, abandoning McRee and Barrancas. Southern troops then occupied both of those forts and the Pensacola Navy Yard. After Slemmer evacuated to Fort Pickens, the commander of Southern forces in Pensacola, Colonel William Chase, demanded the surrender of Fort Pickens on January 15 and January 18, 1861. Both times Slemmer refused. To prevent conflict before the creation of the Confederacy, Florida senator Stephen Mallory arranged a Fort Pickens truce with President James Buchanan in late January and early February 1861. This truce maintained the status quo, and both sides agreed that they would not improve defenses. The Union garrison in Fort Pickens was denied reinforcements but allowed to land supplies. Southern troops agreed not to attack the fort. While this truce was in effect, Colonel Chase resigned his command in Pensacola and was replaced by Brigadier General Braxton Bragg, who arrived in Pensacola on March 11, 1861. Although the truce was strained in the weeks after Bragg’s arrival, it held until President Abraham Lincoln reinforced Fort Pickens in April 1861. On March 28, 1861, Lincoln decided to resupply and possibly reinforce Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, and he chose to end the Fort Pickens truce by sending reinforcements there. But Lincoln’s secretary of state, William Seward, diverted the powerful U.S. Navy steam frigate Powhatan from the Sumter mission and assigned it to the Fort Pickens relief mission on his own authority. Seward’s actions undermined the Union attempt to resupply Sumter, but Union reinforcements were landed at Fort Pickens during the night of April 12, 1861. Colonel Henry Brown became the Union garrison’s new commander on April 16, 1861. With the truce over, both sides improved their defenses until October 9, 1861, when Bragg launched the Battle of Santa Rosa Island east of Fort Pickens. This

232 |â•‡ Fort Pillow,Tennessee

two-day engagement accomplished little. Brown’s Union troops repulsed the attack, inflicting 87 casualties on Bragg’s men while suffering 67 themselves. In response to this assault, on November 9, 1861, Union forces in and around Fort Pickens began a two-day bombardment of Confederate defenses in Pensacola, damaging Fort McRee so severely that it did not participate in the second day of the bombardment. Casualties at Fort Pickens were light, and the fort sustained little damage. But as with the Battle of Santa Rosa Island, the November bombardment had little effect on the situation at Pensacola. Neither side seemed able to gain an advantage. There was another brief bombardment on January 1, 1862, but, as with the earlier cannonade, it had little effect. With the Union captures of Forts Henry and Donelson and then New Orleans, however, Confederate authorities found it necessary to shift forces to the western theater and decided that resources had to be moved from Pensacola. After destroying much of its facilities, the Confederates evacuated the city on May 10, 1862, and Union troops occupied Pensacola two days later. Fort Pickens was one of few forts in the South to remain under Union control for the entire war, and Union control of Fort Pickens made the Confederate hold on Pensacola precarious and untenable, leading to the Southern evacuation in May 1862. Fort Pickens kept Southerners from using Pensacola Bay as a haven for blockaderunners and, after the Confederate evacuation, Union forces restored the naval yard and used it as a repair base for ships of the East Gulf Blockading Squadron and for ships involved in the battles of Vicksburg, Port Hudson, and Mobile Bay. Mark A. Smith See also Blockade of the Confederacy; Blockade-Runners; East Gulf Blockading Squadron; Fort Donelson, Battle of; Fort Henry, Battle of; Fort Sumter, South Carolina; Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, Relief Efforts and Beginning of the Civil War; Lincoln, Abraham; Mallory, Stephen Russell; Mobile Bay, Battle of; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; Pensacola Navy Yard; Port Hudson, Louisiana, Action at; Port Hudson, Louisiana, Siege of; Powhatan, USS; Vicksburg Campaign

References Coleman, James C., and Irene S. Coleman. Guardians on the Gulf: Pensacola Fortifications, 1698–1980. Rev. ed. Pensacola: Pensacola Historical Society, 1985. Detzer, David. Allegiance: Fort Sumter, Charleston, and the Beginning of the Civil War. New York: Harcourt, 2001. Pearce, George F. Pensacola during the Civil War: A Thorn in the Side of the Confederacy. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000.

Fort Pillow, Tennessee Confederate fort on the Mississippi River, the Union capture of which in June 1862 allowed an attack on Memphis, Tennessee. Located 60 miles to the south

Fort Pillow,Tennesseeâ•‡ | 233

of Island Number 10 and just north of Fulton on the Tennessee shore, Fort Pillow guarded the northern approach to the vital Confederate railhead of Memphis 40 miles downriver. Originally, Pillow was seen as a backup position to Columbus and Island Number 10, although its commander, Captain Montgomery Lynch, did what he could to make it capable of withstanding a siege. After the loss of Forts Henry and Donelson, Major General Leonidas Polk had reinforced Pillow by sending a detachment there under Brigadier General John B. Villepigue. Following the loss of New Madrid, General P. G. T. Beauregard ordered its garrison there. After the Union capture of Island Number 10 and the Confederate defeat at Shiloh on April 7, Beauregard also ordered 1,000 slaves to Pillow to improve its entrenchments. Fort Pillow was made into a strong defensive position with batteries located on the high, nearly vertical Chickasaw Bluffs and in their face at the water’s edge. When completed, Fort Pillow mounted some 40 heavy guns, including 10-inch Columbiads. Most were in the lower batteries. It also had extensive earthworks and was manned by some 6,000 men. On April 14, the Union Western Flotilla of ironclads, mortar boats, towboats, transports, supply ships, and tugs reached a point just above Fort Pillow. At 2:00 p.m., Union mortar boats along the Arkansas side of the river fired the first shells at Fort Pillow. The mortar bombardment continued for the next seven weeks. The original Union plan of attack developed by Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote and Brigadier General John Pope called for the mortar boats, protected by the gunboats, to bombard the land batteries, while Pope’s Army of the Mississippi went ashore upriver and outflanked the fort from the rear and Foote’s gunboats assaulted it from the front. But Pope quickly determined that he could not reach the rear of Fort Pillow from any point of the river above it, and he decided to repeat the plan of Island Number 10 by digging a six-mile-long canal on the Arkansas side of the river across Craigshead Point to pass Union gunboats below the Confederate position. In the meantime, both sides engaged in harassing fire. It seemed Fort Pillow would only be taken in a lengthy operation. Any possibility of a quick strike at Pillow was dashed when commander of the Department of the Missouri Major General Henry W. Halleck withdrew Pope’s troops for his own campaign against Corinth. Foote and Pope learned of this decision the evening of April 16. The bulk of the Union land force departed upriver the next day in 20 transports, taking with them tools for cutting through the swamps and leaving behind only Colonel Graham N. Fitch and 1,200 infantry to garrison Fort Pillow, should the Confederates decide to evacuate it. The Union naval bombardment of Fort Pillow continued, but it was principally harassing fire. On May 8 three Confederate rams of the River Defense Fleet came out, but they soon retired on discovering the presence of three Union ironclads. The next day, Foote left the flotilla for health reasons and was replaced by Flag Officer Charles H. Davis. On May 10 there occurred the Battle of Plum Point

234 |â•‡ Fort Sumter, South Carolina

Bend, the war’s first real engagement between naval squadrons. Although suffering much higher personnel losses, Southern rams temporarily disabled two of the more powerful Union gunboats. For three weeks Davis continued a slow bombardment of the Confederate positions. By May 25, all seven of Colonel Charles Ellet’s steamers of the Army Mississippi Ram Fleet were with the flotilla. These converted Ohio River steamers, conceived solely as rams with no ordnance, were the Union answer to the Confederate rams. Ellet wanted an immediate blow against Fort Pillow, which Davis resisted, but the Confederates took the decision out of Union hands. On May 29–30 General Beauregard, deciding to save his 50,000 men, evacuated Corinth to Halleck’s 120,000-man army and retired to a new line along the Tuscumbia River in Alabama. This left Fort Pillow outflanked and untenable, and on June 4 the Confederates blew up their guns and burned what provisions and stores they could not carry away. On June 5, Davis’s flotilla and Ellet’s rams moved past Pillow to take Memphis. The battle for that important city occurred the next day. Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Chickasaw Bluffs, Battle of; Cincinnati, USS; Davis, Charles Henry; Ellet, Charles, Jr.; Foote, Andrew Hull; Fort Donelson, Battle of; Fort Henry, Battle of; Ironclads, Union; Island Number 10, Battle of; Memphis, First Battle of; Mississippi River; Mississippi River Defense Fleet; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Mortar Boats; Plum Point Bend, Battle of; Ram Fleet, U.S.; Riverine Warfare

References Milligan, John D. Gunboats Down the Mississippi. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1965. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Fort St. Philip See Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s Run Past

Fort Sumter, South Carolina U.S. coastal fortification located in Charleston Harbor, designed to protect the main shipping channel leading to the port of Charleston. Initial construction on Fort Sumter began in 1829; however, when the Civil War began, the redoubt was still not entirely completed. Named for longtime South Carolina resident and Revolutionary War hero Brigadier General Thomas Sumter, Fort Sumter was one of 42 forts built in the aftermath of the War of 1812. In 1816, the U.S. Congress

Fort Sumter, South Carolinaâ•‡ | 235

Fort Sumter guarded the mouth of Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. It is shown here in a photograph of April 1865. (Library of Congress)

appropriated $800,000 to erect a series of fortifications along the Gulf Coast and the East Coast. The building program came to be known as the Third System and commenced in 1821, based on a presidential-appointed board of engineers, which determined the various sites for the proposed fortifications. The Third System was to include as many as 200 sites, but congressional parsimony and general disinterest in coastal defenses ultimately limited the number built to just 42 by 1861. Fort Sumter was built on an entirely man-made island, which explains the lengthy time for its construction. To build up the area and keep it well above the high-water line, engineers brought in by train and then ship some 70,000 tons of granite, much of which came from Vermont. The huge blocks of rock were then placed atop a naturally occurring sandbar at the entrance to Charleston Harbor. Thousands of tons of gravel and soil were then placed atop the granite before construction of the actual fortification could begin. Fort Sumter is an imposing, five-sided structure made entirely of masonry. Each wall is between 150 and 170 feet long and 5 feet thick, made of solid stone and brick. The entire structure sits approximately 50 feet above the low-tide mark,

236 |â•‡ Fort Sumter, South Carolina

making it virtually impervious to swamping even during the most severe storms and hurricanes. The fort was designed to accommodate 135 large guns in three tiers of placement. It was also designed to support a garrison of up to 650 men, although it had considerably fewer than that in 1861. Many of the guns were not in place either. Fort Sumter is about two miles from Charleston’s battery, near downtown, and it can only be reached by boat. Thus, all provisions, including food and water, had to be supplied via water. Located not far away on Sullivan’s Island was Fort Moultrie. Fort Johnson lay across the harbor from Fort Moultrie from which the first shell was fired into Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861. On December 26, 1860, a small Union garrison of 127 men under the command of Major Robert Anderson had occupied Fort Sumter, determined to hold it for the Union. At the time, there were only 66 cannon at Fort Sumter, or less than half the number the installation had been designed to support. Several of those were dismounted and a good number were not operational. By the time events came to a head on April 12, 1861, Fort Sumter had neither been reinforced nor supplied since Anderson took up a position there. Meanwhile, the Confederate government had ordered Brigadier General P. G. T. Beauregard to demand surrender of the fort and, failing that, to bombard it into submission. Beauregard erected artillery batteries at Fort Moultrie and Fort Johnson in case a bombardment became necessary. At 3:20 a.m. on April 12, two Confederates rowed out to Fort Sumter, presenting Anderson with his last chance to surrender without violence. Anderson refused. About an hour later, at 4:30 a.m., the Confederates fired the first shell that began the Civil War. It had come from Fort Johnson but exploded high above the redoubt. A 34-hour artillery duel began, with the Union troops at a distinct disadvantage. Ultimately, the garrison could bring only six cannon to bear, and their fire caused little damage to Forts Moultrie and Johnson. No Union shells made their way into Charleston proper. By April 13, Fort Sumter had been badly damaged, and much of its garrison was suffering from smoke inhalation. By dawn, there were three separate blazes burning in the fort’s interior, one of which was perilously close to the powder magazine. With U.S. efforts at relief having failed and with no other option, Anderson finally agreed to surrender on April 14. He was allowed to evacuate his force and carry the colors out in orderly fashion and offered a 100-gun salute as the flag was hauled down. Unfortunately, a cannon exploded during the salute, injuring several and killing one. That was, miraculously, the only human fatality during the bombardment of Fort Sumter. After the Union garrison had departed the island, the Confederates took control. Fort Sumter would be the object of several Union naval assaults, the most important of which occurred on April 7, 1863.

Fort Sumter, Union Attacks onâ•‡ | 237

After the war, the U.S. government took control of the facility and rebuilt and restored it. Many of the cannon employed during the 1861 bombardment still stand in their original locations. Fort Sumter is now a national monument administered by the U.S. National Park Service. It can be toured via boat shuttles originating in Charleston. Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr. See also Charleston, South Carolina; Charleston, South Carolina, Du Pont’s Attack on; Dahlgren, John Adolph Bernard; Davis, Jefferson Finis; Du Pont, Samuel Francis; Fort Pickens, Florida; Fort Sumter, Union Attacks on; Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, Relief Efforts and Beginning of the Civil War; Fox, Gustavus Vasa; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Star of the West, USS; Welles, Gideon

References Barnes, Frank. Fort Sumter. Washington, DC: U.S. National Park Service, 1984. Klein, Maury. Days of Defiance: Sumter, Secession, and the Coming of the Civil War. New York: Knopf, 1997.

Fort Sumter, Union Attacks on Start Date: September 7, 1863 End Date: September 9, 1863 Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren, who took over command of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron from Rear Admiral Samuel F. Du Pont in June 1863, was determined to succeed in an attack on Charleston where his predecessor had failed. From July to September 1863, the major combatants of Dahlgren’s South Atlantic Blockading Squadron kept up a naval bombardment of the city’s defenses, especially supporting Major General Quincy A. Gillmore’s attacks against Fort Wagner on Morris Island. Although repeated Union efforts to take Wagner met rebuff, on August 17 Gillmore was able to open a weeklong bombardment of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, supported by the ironclads. On August 21, Dahlgren attempted a night attack on Sumter, which however failed when the Passaic grounded about a half mile from the fort. Although the ironclad was gotten off, this delay caused cancellation of the attack. Dahlgren hesitated between a daylight assault or another night attempt, but on August 23 he mounted another night attack. He repeated this at close range on September 1, the monitors suffering but little in the exchange but the fort held. Gillmore, meanwhile, opened long-range shelling of Charleston itself. He claimed that its purpose was to drive Confederate shipping from the city’s wharfs, but the effort seems to have been largely an artillery exercise and it only hardened Southern determination. Finally, after repulsing several attacks with heavy Union losses, the Confederates abandoned Fort Wagner on September 6.

238 |â•‡ Fort Sumter, Union Attacks on

On September 7, Dahlgren mounted a major attack on Fort Sumter, pummeling the fort from the monitors Passaic, Patapsco, Lehigh, Nahant, Montauk, and Weehawken. The Union ships drew little response, save from Fort Moultrie on Sullivan’s Island. The Weehawken, however, grounded between Fort Sumter and Cummings Point, and all the Union ships were subjected to a heavy attack at daybreak from the shore batteries. Dahlgren called in the powerful ironclad USS New Ironsides to cover the stranded Weehawken. It anchored some 1,200 yards from Fort Moultrie, engaging it and driving its gunners to cover. That day the New Ironsides fired 483 shells and was struck at least 70 times in return but not seriously damaged. The New Ironsides finally withdrew after having expended all its ammunition. That afternoon the Weehawken refloated and all the Union ships withdrew. In the exchange, the Passaic was hit 51 times, disabling the turret. Dahlgren then ordered a boat attack against Sumter from Morris Island. On the night of September 8–9, Commander Thomas H. Stevens led some 400 sailors and marines in more than 30 boats. The Confederates were waiting. Alerted to the Union plan as a consequence of the recovery of a signal key from the wrecked ironclad USS Keokuk, the defenders held their fire until the boats were nearly ashore, then opened up with cannon, small arms, and hand grenades, while their own ironclad Chicora provided enfilading fire. The attack began and ended so rapidly that the Union ironclads New Ironsides, Lehigh, and Mohawk were not able to get into position to provide covering fire. Union losses were 6 killed, 15 wounded, and 106 men taken prisoner, 11 of them officers. This failure brought to an end Union offensive operations in Charleston Harbor. All the ironclads were sent for extensive repairs at Port Royal, and it would be weeks before these could be effected. The other forts continued to hold out, and the Confederates moved some of their heavy guns from Fort Sumter to the more powerful works of Forts Moultrie and Jackson. Charleston did not fall to Union forces until February 1865, after Major General William T. Sherman’s troops had cut its land communications with the rest of the South. Spencer C. Tucker See also Charleston, South Carolina; Charleston, South Carolina, Du Pont’s Attack on; Dahlgren, John Adolph Bernard; Du Pont, Samuel Francis; Fox, Gustavus Vasa; Ironclads, Union; Keokuk, USS; New Ironsides, USS; Passaic-Class Monitors; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Strategy, Union Naval; Welles, Gideon

References Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 14. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1902. Wise, Stephen R. Gate of Hell: Campaign for Charleston Harbor, 1863. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1994.

Fort Sumter, Union Attacks onâ•‡ | 239

240 |â•‡ Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, Relief Efforts and Beginning of the Civil War

Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, Relief Efforts and Beginning of the Civil War Event Date: April 1861 On February 4, 1861, representatives from seven states of the Deep South—Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas—that had already seceded from the United States met in Montgomery, Alabama, to form a new republic. On February 8, the convention announced the establishment of the Confederate States of America. Meanwhile, the governments in the seceded states proceeded to seize control of all Union forts and naval facilities within their territory. Alabama militiamen took Fort Morgan at Mobile on January 5; Louisiana troops seized Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip on the lower Mississippi River on January 10; and Alabama and Florida units took over Fort Barrancas and the Pensacola Navy Yard on January 12. By the time of President Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration in Washington on March 4, 1861, of national forts in the seceded states, only Fort Pickens on Santa Rosa Island off Pensacola in Florida and Fort Sumter at Charleston, South Carolina, remained under Union control. Sumter’s situation was the most precarious. Located on a man-made island in Charleston Harbor, the fort was vulnerable to land artillery fire. U.S. Army major Robert Anderson and his 127 officers and men at Sumter were also almost out of provisions. Sumter had neither been reinforced nor supplied since the troops had rowed out to the island from Fort Moultrie on the night of December 26, 1860. On January 2, 1861, U.S. president James Buchanan authorized reinforcements for Sumter, but, in order not to provoke the South, the 200 men were to be sent out on unarmed merchant ship the Star of the West. Word of the operation leaked out and when the ship arrived off Charleston flying a large American flag and began moving past Morris Island to the southeast of Fort Sumter at the mouth of Charleston Harbor, newly erected Confederate batteries there opened fire. Although the Star of the West made it past Morris Island, it then came under fire from Fort Moultrie to the north of Sumter on Sullivan’s Island and was obliged to turn back. With Sumter now masked by Confederate artillery, on January 11, 1861, authorities at Charleston demanded that Anderson surrender, but he refused. While there were those in the navy who believed they could reinforce Sumter without the introduction of ground troops, the army demurred. Anderson, the commander on the spot, estimated that as many as 20,000 troops would be required to reduce the Charleston shore batteries before ships would be able to reach Sumter. U.S. Army general in chief Brevet Lieutenant General Winfield Scott concurred with Anderson, but he placed the estimate at 25,000 men: 5,000 regulars and 20,000 volunteers. Putting this in perspective, the entire U.S. Army numbered about 16,000 men, many of whom were scattered in outposts across the western frontier.

Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, Relief Effortsand Beginning of the Civil War â•‡ | 241 Reluctantly, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles and Secretary of War Simon Cameron concurred with Scott’s gloomy assessment. Secretary of State William Seward also pointed out that a relief expedition to Sumter would probably lead to war and bring the secession of Virginia. Seward favored evacuating Sumter and holding Pickens. Scott concurred with Seward’s view but favored evacuating both forts. When President Lincoln polled his cabinet in mid-March, only Postmaster General Montgomery Blair and Interior Secretary Caleb B. Smith favored an expedition to Sumter. The other five members were opposed. Although Lincoln was torn, he believed he had to take some action. Northern opinion was hardening against the South, and the press was demanding that something be done to reinforce Sumter. Gustavus Fox, introduced by his brother-in-law Montgomery Blair to Lincoln, assured the president that the navy could run boats filled with supplies and men to Sumter under the cover of darkness and protected by that fort’s guns and those of nearby ships. The persuasive Fox seems to have reinforced Lincoln’s own view that both Anderson and Scott were unduly pessimistic. On the evening of March 28, following a dinner at the White House, Lincoln met with his chief advisors. Scott had left early and was thus not present when Lincoln read Scott’s letter urging evacuation of both forts and claiming that this might “instantly soothe and give confidence to the eight remaining slave-holding States, and render their cordial adherence to the Union perpetual.” Some professed to see Virginia native Scott as tainted in his views, and it became clear as the discussion wore on that Lincoln wanted something done to reinforce both forts. After a cabinet meeting the next morning, Seward concluded that Lincoln was determined on action and that a majority of the cabinet was now prepared to support this position, but he did not inform Scott. Ignoring the simpler course of evacuating Sumter and holding on to Pickens, on March 30 Lincoln ordered Welles to prepare a relief expedition for Sumter based on the plan drawn up by Fox. The expedition was to be ready to sail by April 6; Lincoln would make the final decision at that point. The key warship in the planned relief of Sumter was the side-wheeler steam frigate Powhatan, with 1 XI-inch and 10 IX-inch Dahlgrens. Located at the New York (Brooklyn) Navy Yard, the ship had only recently returned from a lengthy cruise in poor repair and on April 1 had been ordered to be decommissioned and its engines disassembled. Welles now revoked these orders and instructed that the ship be readied for the Sumter expedition. On April 1, Lincoln was still vacillating on a decision regarding the relief of Forts Pickens and Sumter when Seward, accompanied by army captain Montgomery Meigs and navy lieutenant David Dixon Porter, met privately with the president and presented him with his own plan to reinforce Fort Pickens. Accompanied by the Powhatan, the large steam transport Atlantic would ferry 600 men, artillery, and supplies to Fort Pickens. Porter assured Lincoln that if he were given command

242 |â•‡ Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, Relief Effortsand Beginning of the Civil War

of the frigate, he could guarantee success. Following discussion, Lincoln agreed with Seward’s proposals and personally signed the orders. Seward and Porter also convinced Lincoln to bypass Welles, claiming that if the Navy Department was involved, disloyal clerks there would immediately inform Confederate authorities and any chance to save Pickens would thus be lost. Nonetheless, Lincoln’s decisions to bypass Welles and appoint a lieutenant to command a frigate were major breaches of established naval procedure. On the morning of April 2, Porter presented himself to Captain Andrew H. Foote at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Foote was immediately suspicious of Porter, concerned that this might be a ploy to turn the Powhatan over to the South. Porter eventually convinced Foote to proceed and not to inform Welles. Working around the clock, men at the yard managed to have the frigate ready for sea in only four days. Meanwhile Welles, blissfully unaware of Seward’s machinations, was assembling the squadron for Sumter. Several telegrams from the secretary, however, convinced Foote that Welles did not know what was planned for the Powhatan, and Foote hinted at the true situation in a telegram that immediately aroused Welles’s suspicions. Matters came to a head late on the night of April 5 when Welles confronted Seward. The two men then met with Lincoln at the White House and, over Seward’s protests, the president ordered the Powhatan restored to the Sumter expedition. Seward continued his duplicitous ways. Instructed by Lincoln to notify the Brooklyn yard immediately, he delayed sending the telegram until 2:30 p.m. on April 6. He also did not note that this decision was by Lincoln’s order. Thus Foote did not receive the telegram until 3:00 p.m., a half hour after the Powhatan had sailed. Foote immediately sent a steam tug with an aide to overhaul the frigate, but Porter refused to obey the telegram, stating that his orders came directly from the president and that it was too late for him to change his plans. The Powhatan thus continued out into the Atlantic. The Sumter expedition that sailed April 10 with Fox in charge thus consisted of only two warships: the screw sloop Pawnee (eight IX-inch Dahlgrens) and the side-wheeler Harriet Lane, the only steamer in the Revenue Service (three IX-inch Dahlgrens and a 4.2-inch Parrott rifled gun). These escorted the Baltic, an unarmed troop and supply ship with 200 men and supplies. Although the absence of the Powhatan probably did not change the outcome at Sumter, this chain of events involving the frigate says much about Lincoln administration decision making at the beginning of the war. On April 6, Lincoln had dispatched State Department clerk Robert L. Chew to Charleston to inform South Carolina governor Francis Pickens that a Union supply expedition was being sent to Sumter, in effect leaving it up to Confederate authorities whether there would be war. Chew arrived in Charleston on the night of April 8 and immediately met with Pickens. At the same time, Anderson at Sumter received word via letter from U.S. secretary of war Cameron of the

Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, Relief Effortsand Beginning of the Civil War â•‡ | 243 relief expedition. Meanwhile, Confederate brigadier general P. G. T. Beauregard had established new shore batteries facing Sumter and had trained guns on Sumter from Forts Moultrie and Johnson. Pickens immediately informed Jefferson Davis of Lincoln’s message and, following a meeting and concurrence of the Confederate cabinet, on Davis’s order, Confederate secretary of war Leroy Pope Walker instructed Beauregard to demand Sumter’s surrender and, if this was refused, to reduce the fort. Confident of the arrival of the relief expedition, Anderson rejected the demand, whereupon Beauregard ordered his shore batteries to open fire before the Union ships could arrive. At 4:30 a.m. on April 12, the first shot of the Civil War boomed out across Charleston Harbor, opening a lopsided 34-hour artillery duel. In order to conserve ammunition, Anderson restricted Sumter’s return fire to only six guns. Although Fox’s ships arrived off Charleston Harbor, rough weather precluded any attempt to launch boats to resupply Sumter. Lacking the most powerful ship assigned to his squadron, Fox was also reluctant to expose his ships to enemy fire. With the Confederate batteries holding the Union ships at bay, and with Sumter nearly out of food and fires having broken out in the fort, Anderson surrendered the next day. On April 14, having received Beauregard’s permission, Sumter’s garrison began a last act of firing a 100-gun salute to the U.S. flag. On the 50th shot, however, one of its guns exploded, killing a Union soldier and wounding several others, the only casualties in the battle that began the bloodiest war in U.S. history. The shelling of Sumter galvanized opinion on both sides. As Confederate secretary of state Robert Toombs had warned Davis, it ended any sympathy in the North for the Confederate cause. With the South having fired on the U.S. flag, a patriotic fervor swept the North. On April 15, citing the existence of an “insurrection,” Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 volunteers to serve for three months. What had long been dreaded was now reality; America was at war with itself. Spencer C. Tucker See also Brooklyn Navy Yard; Charleston, South Carolina; Charleston, South Carolina, Du Pont’s Attack on; Davis, Jefferson Finis; Foote, Andrew Hull; Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s Run Past; Fort Morgan, Alabama; Fort Pickens, Florida; Fort Sumter, South Carolina; Fort Sumter, Union Attacks on; Fox, Gustavus Vasa; Lincoln, Abraham; Mallory, Stephen Russell; Pawnee, USS; Pensacola Navy Yard; Porter, David Dixon; Powhatan, USS; Star of the West, USS; Welles, Gideon

References Niven, John. Gideon Welles, Lincoln’s Secretary of the Navy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973. Porter, David Dixon. Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War. New York: D. Appleton, 1985. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

244 |â•‡ Fort Warren, Massachusetts Welles, Gideon. Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy under Lincoln and Johnson. Edited by John T. Morse. 3 vols. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1911.

Fort Warren, Massachusetts U.S. fort first completed in 1847 and dedicated in 1850 on George’s Island, a 53-acre (at high tide) island situated in Boston Harbor, about seven miles from downtown Boston, Massachusetts. The island was used principally for agricultural pursuits until 1825, when the U.S. government purchased it as part of its larger coastal defense program. Fort Warren was constructed over a number of years and was finally dedicated in 1847. By the time of its completion, however, the post was practically obsolete from a coastal defense perspective, but it was used as a training ground for naval and militia forces and as a patrol point for Boston Harbor. It gained notoriety during the Civil War as a prisoner of war (POW) camp for Confederates, most of whom had been Confederate naval personnel. It also housed numerous political prisoners during the conflict. The fort was named for Dr. Joseph Warren, the Revolutionary War hero who had sent Paul Revere on his famous ride in 1775 and who died at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Fort Warren was a pentagonal-shaped post constructed of stone and granite. Although it was dedicated in 1850, the U.S. government continued to improve and modernize the fort until 1861. Most of the construction was supervised by the noted U.S. Army engineer Sylvanus Thayer. Fort Warren was known for its compassionate treatment of POWs and prisoners during 1861–1865. Among those interned there were James M. Mason and John Slidell, the Confederate diplomats who had been seized by the U.S. Navy during the Trent Affair. Confederate vice president Alexander H. Stephens was also held at Fort Warren. Fort Warren remained an active post through World War II, having also seen service during the 1898 Spanish-American War and World War I. During the 1890s and into the early years of the 20th century, Fort Warren underwent numerous upgrades, mainly to accommodate the new guns and ordnance that had been developed for coastal defenses. In 1947, the fort was permanently decommissioned. After several years of restoration, Fort Warren was turned over to the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, which maintains it to this day. It may be toured, via ferry from Boston. Some 100,000 people visit the historic site every year. Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr. See also Boston Navy Yard; Mason, James Murray; Slidell, John; Trent Affair

References Hesseltine, William B., ed. Civil War Prisons. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1997. Schmidt, Jay. Fort Warren: New England’s Most Historic Civil War Site. Amherst, NH: Unified Business Technologies Press, 2003.

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Fox, Gustavus Vasa Birth Date: June 13, 1821 Death Date: 1883 Assistant secretary of the U.S. Navy Department. Born in Saugus, Massachusetts, on June 13, 1821, Gustavus Vasa Fox was a student for two years at the Phillips Academy in Andover. He entered the navy as a midshipman on January 12, 1838, and was promoted to passed midshipman on May 20, 1844. Fox saw action in the Mexican-American War in the brig Washington and took part in the second expedition against Tabasco, Mexico, in January 1847. He was promoted to master on August 29, 1851, and to lieutenant on July 9, 1852. Having received leave earlier to learn about steam propulsion, he resigned from the navy on July 10, 1852, to command mail steamers. In July 1856, he entered private business as an agent of the Bay State Mills in Lawrence, Massachusetts. The secessionist crisis brought Fox to Washington to aid his brother-in-law— the politically prominent Montgomery Blair of Maryland, who became postmaster general and a member of President Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet—in pushing for an expedition to relieve the U.S. garrison at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. Fox proposed running ships past the Confederate shore batteries at night. President James Buchanan rejected the project, but the inauguration of new president Abraham Lincoln gave it new life, and Lincoln ordered Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles to proceed. Fox secured command of the expedition, which sailed on April 10 but numbered only two warships—the screw sloop Pawnee and side-wheeler Harriet Lane— escorting the unarmed troop and supply ship Baltic with 200 men and supplies. Fox arrived off Charleston on April 12, only to find Fort Sumter already under Confederate fire. Following Major Robert Anderson’s surrender the next day, Fox evacuated the Gustavus Vasa Fox who, as assistant secretary small U.S. garrison there to New York. of the navy, played an important role in the Impressed with Fox, Lincoln offered Union successes at sea during the Civil War. him a naval command, which Fox (Naval History and Heritage Command)

246 |â•‡ Fox, Gustavus Vasa

turned down to accept in May 1861 the position of chief clerk in the Navy Department headed by Welles. Lincoln had already promised the creation of a new position, that of assistant secretary of the navy, which Fox assumed on August 1, 1861. Fox and Welles proved a fine team. Hard-working and a gifted administrator with a gregarious personality who knew how to get along with others, Fox handled most of the day-to-day departmental administrative matters, leaving Welles free to set policy. Certainly Welles relied on Fox to an unusual degree because of the latter’s expertise in naval matters—the secretary’s only naval experience had been as a civilian administrator. Although Welles made the final decisions, he deferred to Fox in such areas as types of ships purchased at the beginning of the war for conversion to blockaders, ship armament, the development of the XV-inch Dahlgren gun for the monitors, and—most fatefully—the emphasis on construction of shallow-draft ironclad monitors as opposed to ironclad ships of the New Ironsides type. (Fox was an eyewitness to the battle between USS Monitor and CSS Virginia and was an enthusiastic advocate of monitors to deal with Confederate ironclads.) Fox was an aggressive proponent of the Union naval operations against Port Royal, New Orleans, and above all Charleston under Rear Admiral Samuel Du Pont. Welles also relied on Fox to shepherd naval appropriations through Congress. Fox was close to Lincoln. The president enjoyed his company, appreciated his optimism, and was often a visitor in the Fox home. Fox was a key figure in the Union victory. His biographer Ari Hoogenboom likens his role to that of the present position of chief of naval operations. Admiral David D. Porter believed that Fox was responsible for the success of the Union Navy in the war more than any other single individual. Fox resigned his post on May 22, 1866. Within a few days, Fox received a six-month reappointment as assistant secretary of the navy when President Andrew Johnson sent him on a diplomatic mission to Russia to convey the nation’s congratulations to Tsar Alexander II on having survived an assassination attempt. In a memorable voyage, Fox crossed the Atlantic in the monitor Miantonomoh and then steamed on to Kronstadt. Fox resigned his post again on November 26, 1866, and returned to the business world first as an agent of the Middlesex Company in Lowell, Massachusetts, and then with Mude, Sawyer & Company in Boston. Fox died in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1883. Spencer C. Tucker See also Charleston, South Carolina, Du Pont’s Attack on; Dahlgren, John Adolph Bernard; Dahlgren Guns; Du Pont, Samuel Francis; Fort Sumter, South Carolina; Fort Sumter, Union Attacks on; Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, Relief Efforts and Beginning of the Civil War; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Ironclads, Union; Lincoln, Abraham; Monitor, USS; New Ironsides, USS; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; Pawnee, USS; Porter, David Dixon; Port Royal Sound, Battle of; Virginia, CSS; Welles, Gideon

References Fox, Gustavus. Confidential Correspondence of Gustavus Vasa Fox, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, 1861–1865. Edited by Robert Means Thompson and Richard Wainwright. New York: De Vinne, 1918.

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Hoogenboom, Ari. Gustavus Vasa Fox of the Union Navy: A Biography. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. Niven, John. “Gideon Welles.” In American Secretaries of the Navy, Vol. 1, 1775–1913, edited by Paolo Coletta, 321–361. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1980. Niven, John. Gideon Welles, Lincoln’s Secretary of the Navy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973.


G Galena, USS One of three experimental ironclads ordered by the U.S. Navy in 1861. Designed by naval constructor Samuel Pook and commissioned on April 21, 1863, the Galena was 210 feet in overall length by 36 feet in beam. It displaced 950 tons and had a crew complement of 150 men. The Galena mounted four IX-inch Dahlgren smoothbores and two 6.4-inch Parrott rifles. Equipped with a two-mast schooner rig to supplement its single screw propeller, the Galena was capable of eight knots. It was unusual in having tumblehome sides that were protected by 3.25-inch armor formed of interlocking iron bars. The Galena disappointed as a ship type from its very first combat action, a duel between Union ships and Confederate shore batteries at Drewry’s Bluff on the James River on May 15, 1862. In the engagement most of the Confederate fire was directed against the Galena, which took a terrible pounding, particularly on its port side. Its armor proved susceptible to plunging fire that struck at almost straight angles. The ship was hit 43 times and 13 shots penetrated, one embedding itself in

The U.S. Navy ironclad Galena. One of three experimental Union ironclads, the Galena was by far the least successful amd was repeatedly holed in the First Battle of Drewry’s Bluff on May 15, 1862. Note the tumblehome ship sides and armor formed of interlocking iron bars. It was later removed and the ship was converted to an unarmored screw sloop. Watercolor by Oscar Parkes. (Naval History and Heritage Command) 249

250 |â•‡ Galveston, Battle of

the opposite side of the hull. The ship’s timbers and frames were much cut up, and it took on water. Thirteen crewmen were killed and 11 were wounded, a number of these from fragments of the ship’s own plating. Cited for bravery in the action, Corporal John B. Mackie of the ironclad was subsequently awarded the Medal of Honor, the first to a member of the U.S. Marine Corps. In his after action report of the battle, Captain John Rodgers reported with some irony of the Galena: “We have demonstrated that she is not shot proof.” The Galena’s armor was removed in 1863 and the ship was converted to an unarmored screw sloop with a three-mast sail rig. With the conversion complete in February 1864, the Galena joined the West Gulf Blockading Squadron in May and took part in the Battle of Mobile Bay on August 5. It then served in the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron. Decommissioned on June 17, 1865, and condemned in 1870, it was broken up in 1872. Spencer C. Tucker See also Drewry’s Bluff, First Battle of; Ironclads, Union; James River; Medal of Honor, U.S. Navy; Mobile Bay, Battle of; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Rodgers, John; West Gulf Blockading Squadron


Galveston, Battle of Event Date: January 1, 1863 The city of Galveston, Texas, was important to both sides in the Civil War. The largest prewar Texas seaport, it had a population of some 7,000 people and was that state’s second-largest city. Galveston shipped much of the state’s cotton (200,000 bales in 1860) and sugar, and it also boasted some war industries. In Union hands, it would be an excellent westernmost blockading base and could serve as a staging area for an invasion into the interior to secure Texas cotton and the border with Mexico. The U.S. Navy initiated a blockade of Galveston in July 1861, but it was not until October 4, 1862, that Union forces attempted to take the city. On that date, Commander William B. Renshaw arrived with the steamers Westfield (flagship), Harriet Lane, Owasco, and Clifton and the mortar schooner Henry James. Renshaw demanded the Confederates surrender, and when they delayed, Renshaw ordered in all his ships. A brief exchange of fire followed, but inadequate shore defenses led Confederate commander Colonel Joseph J. Cook to accede to Renshaw’s demands

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on condition of a four-day truce. Renshaw reluctantly agreed to prevent civilian casualties, but, much to his chagrin, the Confederates used the truce to remove military personnel, artillery, and equipment. Renshaw’s force at Galveston was strengthened by the arrival of the gunboats Corypheus and Sachem from New Orleans, along with three companies of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment. To ensure naval gunfire support, the Union troops took up position in large warehouses at the end of Kuhn’s Wharf, which projected north into Galveston Bay from the waterfront. Strong barricades denied access to the wharf from the waterfront. The troops also removed portions of the wharf in front of the barricades so that only a single plank connected to the waterfront. At the end of November, Confederate Army major general John B. Magruder assumed command of military forces in Texas. Magruder immediately made the recapture of Galveston a priority. He planned a joint army-navy operation, with the attack set for 1:00 a.m. on January 1, 1863. Magruder assembled his land force at Virginia Point at the northern end of the railroad bridge to Galveston Island. To assault the Union troops on the wharf, he planned to send some 500 men through the shallow water with scaling ladders. Artillery support would be provided by 6 siege guns (including an 8-inch gun on a railroad flat car) and 14 field pieces. The Confederates moved the artillery into position on the night of December 31. Confederate major Leon Smith was to lead a flotilla of improvised warships against the Union gunboats. Assembled at Harrisburg on Buffalo Bayou, these vessels would proceed east to the upper part of the bay, then south to Galveston. Cotton bales piled high aboard the ships gave some protection against small-arms fire. The ships included the “Cottonclads” Bayou City and Neptune and the armed tenders John F. Carr and Lucy Gwin. These carried “horse marines” from the 5th and 7th Texas Cavalry: some 150 in the Bayou City, 100 in the Neptune, and 50 aboard the John F. Carr. They were armed mostly with Enfield rifles and some double-barreled shotguns. Magruder ordered Smith to bring his ships in as close as possible to the Union warships without being detected, then wait for the land attack to begin at 1:00 a.m. on January 1. Magruder planned to carry out the land assault with or without the flotilla, but on no condition did he want the ships to begin the fight. Without the distraction of the land battle, the Confederate ships would have no chance against the far more powerful Union squadron. Renshaw had at his disposal the Westfield (flagship), Harriet Lane, Owasco, Corypheus, Sachem, and Clifton. Five supply vessels were also anchored offshore. In all, the Union warships mounted 30 guns, and these were generally larger than the half dozen cannon in the Confederate warships. The battle did not unfold as Magruder had planned. At about 1:00 a.m., Union lookouts spotted the approach of the Confederate squadron west of Pelican

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Island in the bay and sent signal rockets up to alert the ships and the troops ashore. Obeying Magruder’s orders, Smith then ordered his ships to withdraw some distance. Renshaw tried to position the Westfield to cut off the Confederate vessels, but the Union flagship promptly grounded in the shallow water near Pelican Island. Renshaw called on the Clifton for assistance, but the crews of both ships were still unable to free the flagship. This mishap was a great aid to the Confederates, as it rendered hors de combat at the beginning of the battle the two most powerful Union warships. Magruder now brought his land troops across the railroad bridge to Galveston Island, with the fighting beginning about 4:00 a.m. Assisted by grape from the heavy guns of the Harriet Lane under Commander Jonathan M. Wainwright, the Union troops easily turned back the Confederate attack. Later, the Corypheus and Sachem fired into the Confederate shore positions with considerable effect. By dawn the attack appeared a failure. As soon as the fighting on land began, the Confederate squadron turned about and made full steam down the bay toward the wharf. Soon these warships were bearing down on the Harriet Lane, the nearest Union ship. Captain Henry Lubbock’s Bayou City was slightly in the lead, and one of its shells tore a large hole in the Harriet Lane just aft of its port paddle wheel, but then the 32-pounder on the Bayou City burst, killing several members of the crew. The Bayou City continued on, however. Lubbock hoped to ram the Harriet Lane and take it by boarding, but the Confederate vessel struck the iron-hulled Union ship only a glancing bow and lost most of its own port wheelhouse in the process. At the same time, riflemen on the Bayou City and Neptune poured a steady hail of fire into the Harriet Lane. A portion of the Union ship’s anchoring apparatus was sheared off, causing a length of cable and anchor to fall into the water, and, in the frenzied maneuvering, the ship ran aground at the bow. Captain William Sangster of the Neptune then maneuvered his own ship to ram the stationary Union vessel. The Neptune took a shell from the Harriet Lane as it smashed into it aft of the starboard paddle wheel. As Confederates in the Neptune attempted to grapple the Harriet Lane and board it, the Owasco and other Union ships took the Neptune under fire, forcing it to back off in sinking condition. The explosion of a 9-inch shell from the Harriet Lane hastened the Neptune’s demise. Thinking the battle won, sailors on the Harriet Lane let out a cheer. This was premature, for the Bayou City soon crashed into the Harriet Lane’s port paddle wheel. With the two vessels locked together, the far more numerous Confederates stormed the Union ship and quickly captured it. Wainwright and his executive officer were among the Union dead. Realizing what had happened, the remaining Union ships attempted to recapture the Harriet Lane. The Owasco led, sending a shell into the Harriet Lane’s stern, but riflemen on the Bayou City exacted such a toll of Union personnel that

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the Owasco soon backed off. Both sides then regrouped, and a temporary calm descended over the bay. Lubbock then boldly set out in a boat under a flag of truce for the Union ships. Taken aboard the Owasco, he brazenly demanded that the Union ships surrender, allowing three hours for the decision. If Renshaw agreed, he would be allowed to depart with his men in one of his ships. Convinced that the battle was now lost, the men of the 54th Massachusetts surrendered. Renshaw ordered Lieutenant Commander Richard L. Law, captain of the Clifton, to withdraw the remaining Union ships from the harbor and escape while he scuttled the Westfield. Renshaw ordered his men into the ship’s boats, then set it alight. But as he stepped into the ship’s cutter, the magazine exploded, killing him and the boat crew. Law, meanwhile, escaped to sea with the remaining four Union ships, all still flying white flags. Law later faced a court-martial and was suspended from duty. The Battle of Galveston was over, a Confederate victory. At a cost of one ship lost and 26 men dead and another 117 wounded, they had retaken Galveston and reopened it to blockade-runners. They had destroyed two Union warships, captured two barks loaded with coal and a small schooner, and taken substantial stores and at least 25,000 rounds of small-arms ammunition. They had also killed several dozen Union sailors and soldiers and taken prisoner more than 350 others. Although the Union blockade was quickly reestablished off Galveston, the Confederates retained control of that port for the remainder of the war. Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Blockade of the Confederacy; Blockade-Runners; Cottonclads; Flotilla; Galveston, Texas; Galveston, Texas, Union Capture of; Gulf Blockading Squadron; Gulf of Mexico; Harriet Lane, USS; Marine Corps, CSA; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Frazier, Donald S. Cottonclads! The Battle of Galveston and the Defense of the Texas Coast. Abilene, TX: McWhiney Foundation Press, 1996. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 19. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1905.

Galveston, Texas Strategic port city located on Texas’s northeastern Gulf Coast, about 45 miles southeast of Houston, Texas. The city of Galveston, which was the only major Southern port still in Confederate control at the end of the Civil War, is situated on

254 |â•‡ Galveston,Texas

Galveston Island, a low-lying barrier island with the Gulf of Mexico to the east and south, West Bay to the west, and Galveston Bay to the north. Because of its location on the Gulf Coast, it served as a major port for the Confederacy. Its locale and topography also make it susceptible to damaging hurricanes. In 1900, a hurricane utterly devastated Galveston, resulting in the deaths of as many as 8,000 people. That grim event remains the most costly natural disaster in American history. In 1785, the Spanish first surveyed the area around what would become Galveston. In 1816, the first permanent European settlement was established on Galveston Island by the Frenchman Louis-Michel Aury during Mexico’s war of rebellion against Spanish rule. The notorious pirate Jean Lafitte also took up residence there for a time, using the area as a base of operations. In 1825, the Mexican government established a port at Galveston, and during the 1836 Texas Revolution, Galveston served as the home base for the Texas Navy. It also served as the Republic of Texas’s first capital. The City of Galveston was officially incorporated in 1838. On December 29, 1845, Galveston became part of the United States when Texas was admitted to the Union. In the years preceding the Civil War, Galveston’s population grew steadily, if not spectacularly, but its port and maritime facilities took on major importance. By 1860, the city’s population stood at about 7,500, making it the second-largest city in Texas. It was also a significant center for the cotton industry, processing and exporting as many as 200,000 bales per year. Galveston was home to numerous manufacturing concerns, many of which specialized in maritime goods, including sails. Beginning in July 1861, the Union Navy subjected Galveston to a blockade, and over the following months, the city was occasionally shelled by Union vessels. Despite the blockade, however, Galveston continued to be an important hub for blockade-runners. On average, there were 8 to 10 ships in port at any one time, with several departures and arrivals occurring every evening. Thousands of tons of cotton made it through the blockade, with tons of incoming military and civilian supplies making their way through the blockade lines. In October 1862, the lightly defended Galveston was seized and occupied by a small U.S. Navy flotilla, which was bolstered by 300 soldiers of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry. On January 1, a Confederate force under Major General John Magruder launched a surprise assault against Galveston from both land and sea. In short order, the Confederates had recaptured control of the city. Life in Galveston after that was difficult, as it suffered from shortages and severe economic reversals. An outbreak of yellow fever in October 1864 brought a sizable number of deaths. Union troops entered Galveston on June 19, 1865, marking Galveston’s transition from a Confederate city to an occupied Union city. Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr. See also Blockade of the Confederacy; Blockade-Runners; Galveston, Battle of; Galveston, Texas, Union Capture of; Gulf Blockading Squadron; Gulf of Mexico; Harriet Lane, USS; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

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References Frazier, Donald S. Cottonclads! The Battle of Galveston and the Defense of the Texas Coast. Abilene, TX: McWhiney Foundation Press, 1996. Hardwick, Susan W. Mythic Galveston. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Galveston, Texas, Union Capture of Event Date: October 4, 1862 Galveston, Texas, was an important Confederate port on the Gulf Coast and securing it was a Union war aim. Planners in Washington hoped that it might be the staging area for subsequent land operation in Texas. The U.S. Navy initiated a blockade of Galveston in July 1861, but it was not until October 4, 1862, that Union forces attempted to take the city. On that date, Commander William B. Renshaw arrived with the steamers Westfield (flagship), Harriet Lane, Owasco, and Clifton and the mortar schooner Henry James. Renshaw sent the Harriet Lane over the bar under a flag of truce with a demand for the city’s surrender. When the Confederates delayed in responding, Renshaw ordered all his ships in. A brief exchange of fire followed, but Galveston was poorly defended. What appeared to be a formidable battery on Pelican Island north of the waterfront turned out to be “quakers” or dummies. As a consequence, the Confederate commander at Galveston, Colonel Joseph J. Cook, acceded to Renshaw’s demands, on condition of a four-day truce. Renshaw reluctantly agreed in order to avoid civilian casualties, but, much to his chagrin, the Confederates used the truce to remove personnel, artillery, and equipment. To strengthen U.S. forces at Galveston, the navy sent the small gunboats Corypheus and Sachem there from New Orleans, along with three companies of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment. To ensure themselves of naval gunfire support, the Union troops took up position in large warehouses at the end of Kuhn’s Wharf, which projected north into Galveston Bay from the waterfront. Spencer C. Tucker See also Blockade of the Confederacy; Blockade-Runners; Galveston, Battle of; Galveston, Texas; Gulf Blockading Squadron; Gulf of Mexico; Harriet Lane, USS; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Frazier, Donald S. Cottonclads! The Battle of Galveston and the Defense of the Texas Coast. Abilene, TX: McWhiney Foundation Press, 1996. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

256 |â•‡ Georgia, CSS, Commerce Raider U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 19. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1905.

Georgia, CSS, Commerce Raider The Confederate Navy commerce raider Georgia was built by the firm of Denny Brothers at Dumbarton, Scotland. Launched on January 9, 1863, as the fast merchantman Japan, it was purchased in March by Commander Matthew F. Maury. He never saw the ship, nor did its captain before it was secured. The purchase was suggested by Captain Marin H. Jansen of the Royal Netherlands Navy, who did see the ship, but it came over the objections of Confederate agent in Great Britain James D. Bulloch, who correctly pointed out that the Japan was unsuited for sustained cruising operations. The ship was a screw steamer of 690 tons, 212 feet in overall length, 27 feet in beam, and with a draft of 13 feet, nine inches. The ship had a wooden hull over an iron frame. It is described as having a round stern; short, thick funnel; and large poop. Because the ship had an iron hull, it was not suited for long cruising. In an era in which antifouling coatings were unknown, the Georgia would have to make port on a regular basis to have its hull cleaned. Worse, the Georgia’s sail rig was for auxiliary use only, so it would have to coal at a neutral port every 90 days or so. Although Maury had succeeded in acquiring the ship and getting it to sea in record time, the Georgia could not compare with the ships purchased for the Confederacy by Bulloch, which were much more suitable for commerce raiding. On April 1, 1863, the Japan departed Greenock, Scotland, reportedly bound for the East Indies. Because of a shortage of Confederate Navy officers, Maury was forced to fill the roster with 11 Englishmen. The ship had a crew of 50 men who had signed on for a voyage to Singapore. Off the French island of Ushant, the Japan rendezvoused with the small Channel Islands steamer Alar, which Maury had arranged to carry out the raider’s cannon, ammunition, and other military stores. These were then transferred to the Japan during the course of five nights. Commissioned on April 9, 1863, as the commerce raider CSS Georgia, it was under the command of Confederate Navy commander William Lewis Maury, a distant cousin of Matthew F. Maury. All but 10 members of the original crew of the Japan agreed to remain. The ship was armed with two 100-pounders, one 32-pounder, and two 24-pounders, all of them Whitworth guns. The Georgia (early in its career, it was often mistakenly referred to in the Northern press as the Virginia) first sailed across the South Atlantic to Bahia, Brazil, and then called at Trinidad before recrossing the Atlantic to the east coast of Africa, arriving at Simon’s Bay, Cape Colony, on August 16. It then sailed to Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Tenerife, in the Canary Islands. From there, the Georgia sailed into the

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English Channel, arriving at the French port of Cherbourg on October 28. In this span of nearly seven months, the Georgia took nine prizes. Mallory had hoped to take a major coal ship but only one, the Constitution, provided this, and it took two weeks to transfer its coal by means of buckets. While the Georgia was undergoing repairs at Cherbourg, France, Commander Maury traveled to Paris to meet with Confederate flag officer Samuel Barron. There Maury pointed out the Georgia’s many deficiencies, especially having to cruise almost all the time under steam. Maury was so dissatisfied with his ship that he requested to be relieved of command, and Barron replaced him with Lieutenant William E. Evans. Barron subsequently decided to transfer the Georgia’s armament to CSS Rappahannock. This was never accomplished, however, and the Georgia was subsequently decommissioned and moved near Bordeaux in southwestern France. On May 2, 1864, the Georgia sailed to Liverpool, and there on June 1 the ship was sold to a British merchant over the protests of U.S. minister to Great Britain Charles F. Adams. The steamer put to sea on August 11, but four days later it was intercepted by the U.S. Navy screw frigate Niagara off Portugal. Sent to Boston, Massachusetts, the ship was there condemned as a legitimate prize of the United States and was subsequently sold into private hands as the merchant ship Georgia, operating out of New Bedford, Massachusetts. It passed into Canadian ownership in 1870 and was stranded and wrecked off Tenant’s Harbor, Maine, on January 14, 1875. In the Georgia’s log, Commander Maury reported that he had bonded five prizes valued at a total of $240,000 and had burned four prizes valued at $191,270. At the 1872 Geneva Tribunal (the Alabama Claims), Northern shipping interests set total losses from the Georgia at $406,000, but it denied all claims, concluding that the British government had not been negligent in fulfilling its neutral obligations in this case at least. Spencer C. Tucker See also Adams, Charles Francis, Sr.; Alabama Claims; Barron, Samuel; Bulloch, James Dunwody; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Letters of Marque and Reprisal; Mallory, Stephen Russell; Maury, Matthew Fontaine; Privateers; Prize Cases; Rappahannock, CSS

References Hearn, Chester G. Gray Raiders of the Sea: How Eight Confederate Warships Destroyed the Union’s High Seas Commerce. Camden, ME: International Marine Publishing, 1992. Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. II, Vol. 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1921. U.S. Navy Department, Naval History Division. Civil War Naval Chronology, 1861– 1865. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971.

258 |â•‡ Georgia, CSS, Ironclad Floating Battery

Georgia, CSS, Ironclad Floating Battery Confederate floating battery, not to be confused with the Confederate commerce raider of the same name and also known as the State of Georgia and the Ladies’ Ram. Laid down in 1862, the Georgia was built and launched at Savannah in 1863 and commissioned the next year. Quite large, it was 250 feet in length and 60 feet in beam. It had a 12-foot-high casemate. Because of its totally inadequate steam propulsion plant, the Georgia became a floating battery. Initially armed with nine guns, in June 1864, the battery consisted of just five guns: two IX-inch Dahlgren smoothbores and three 32-pounder rifled guns. Although the full crew complement was some 200 officers and men, on that date, the crew complement was 12 officers and 82 seamen. Commanded by Lieutenant Washington Gwathmey, the Georgia was positioned northeast of Savannah off Fort Jackson so that some of its guns could bear on the north and south channel approaches to the city. The Confederates placed stonefilled cribs around the ship to protect it from Union ramming or spar torpedo attack. The Georgia was destroyed by the Confederates on December 21, 1864, on the Union capture of Savannah. Although the wreck was easily located and parts of it still remain, most of it has been largely destroyed in the repeated dredging of the river channel by the Army Corps of Engineers. Spencer C. Tucker See also Dahlgren Guns; Georgia, CSS, Commerce Raider; Ironclads, Confederate; Savannah River

References Still, William N., Jr. Iron Afloat: The Story of the Confederate Armorclads. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1985. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. II, Vol. 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1921. U.S. Navy Department, Naval History Division. Civil War Naval Chronology, 1861– 1865. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971.

Glassell, William T. Birth Date: January 15, 1831 Death Date: January 28, 1879 Confederate Navy officer. Born in Culpepper County, Virginia, on January 15, 1831, William T. Glassell received a midshipman’s warrant in the U.S. Navy on March 15, 1848. Assigned to the frigate St. Lawrence, he participated in its cruise to European waters when it represented the United States at the World’s Fair at London, England. Glassell was promoted to passed midshipman on June 15, 1854.

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Promoted to master on September 15, 1855, and to lieutenant on September 16, 1855, Glassell was assigned to the steam sloop Hartford in Chinese waters when the Civil War began. Refusing to swear an oath of loyalty on the return of his ship to the United States, Glassell was dismissed from the service on December 6, 1861, and then held as a prisoner of war at Fort Warren in Boston Harbor. Exchanged in the summer of 1862, Glassell secured a commission in the Confederate Navy as a lieutenant on August 2 and was assigned to the Confederate ironclad ram CSS Chicora commanded by Commander John R. Tucker at Charleston, South Carolina. Glassell took part in the attack by the Chicora and another Confederate ironclad, the Palmetto State, against U.S. Navy wooden blockading warships off Charleston on January 31, 1863. Later in 1863, Glassell was assigned as the executive officer of the Confederate Richmond-class ironclad North Carolina at Wilmington, North Carolina. Interested in the possibility of launching attacks by small craft armed with spar torpedoes (mines on the end of a long pole), Glassell secured assignment to the torpedo service at Charleston. He then led the attack in the small torpedo boat David with a crew of four men in an effort to destroy the powerful U.S. Navy ironclad New Ironsides off Charleston on October 5, 1863. The New Ironsides was damaged in the attack and required repairs but did not sink. The force of the blast nearly sank the David and put out the fire in its steam engine. Believing the David to be lost, Glassell and two other members of its crew abandoned ship. One of the crewmen subsequently regained the David; the engineer was able to restart its steam engine and escape, but Glassell and the other member were taken prisoner. Again held at Fort Warren, Glassell was paroled from that place on September 28, 1864, and exchanged at Cox Wharf, Virginia, on October 18, 1864. For his effort to destroy the New Ironsides, Glassell was rewarded with promotion to the rank of commander on January 7, 1864, with date of rank from the day of his attempt, October 5, 1863. On his exchange, Glassell returned to duty at the Charleston station, but, on the evacuation of that city, he was assigned to the James River Squadron in Virginia early in 1865, where he probably commanded the Confederate ironclad Fredericksburg. With the evacuation of Richmond in early April 1865 and destruction of the ships of the squadron, its personnel were organized into a naval brigade commanded by Confederate brigadier general/rear admiral Raphael Semmes, and Glassell commanded a regiment in the brigade. Glassell was paroled at Greensboro, North Carolina, on April 28, 1865. In poor health at the end of the war, Glassell traveled to Los Angeles, California, to be with his brother Andrew Glassell. On recovery of his health, Glassell surveyed the Richland Tract and laid out the city of Orange. Glassell died in Los Angeles at age 48 on January 28, 1879. Spencer C. Tucker

260 |â•‡ Glendy, William Marshall See also Charleston, South Carolina, CSA Navy Attack on U.S. Navy Blockaders; Davids, CSS; Fort Warren, Massachusetts; Hartford, USS; Ironclads, Confederate; James River; James River Squadron, CSA; New Ironsides, USS; New Ironsides, USS, Attack on by CSS David; Richmond, Virginia; Riverine Warfare; Semmes, Raphael; Spar Torpedo; Torpedoes; Tucker, John Randolph

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Coski, John M. Capital Navy: The Men, Ships and Operations of the James River Squadron. Campbell, CA: Savas, 1996. Register of Officers of the Confederate States Navy, 1861–1865: As Compiled and Revised by the Office of Naval Records and Library, United States Navy Department, 1931, from All Available Data. With a new introduction by John M. Carroll. Mattituck, NY: J. M. Carroll, 1981. [Originally published by the Naval Record and Library, U.S. Navy Department, in 1898 and revised in 1931.] U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 15. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1902.

Glendy, William Marshall Birth Date: 1801 Death Date: July 16, 1873 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Virginia in 1801, William Marshall Glendy received a warrant as a midshipman on January 1, 1818. He was promoted to lieutenant on March 3, 1827; to commander on February 25, 1847; and to captain on September 14, 1855. In early 1861, Glendy had been in the navy for 43 years: almost 18 years of service afloat, 6 years of shore duty, and 19 years awaiting orders in a navy that had too many officers for available assignments. In the summer of 1861, Glendy took command of the sloop Saratoga and cruised off Africa and then off Madeira, the Canary Islands, Gibraltar, and Lisbon. Promoted to commodore effective July 16, 1862, he returned to the Philadelphia Navy Yard in December 1862. Placed on the retired list effective April 12, 1862, Glendy nonetheless remained on active duty, assigned as the prize commissioner in Washington, D.C., until the end of the war, when he went on awaiting orders status. Glendy died in Baltimore, Maryland, on July 16, 1873. Spencer C. Tucker See also Blockade-Runners; Philadelphia Navy Yard; Prize Cases


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Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 4. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1896.

Godon, Sylvanus William Birth Date: June 18, 1809 Death Date: May 17, 1879 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on June 18, 1809, Sylvanus William Godon received a midshipman’s warrant on March 1, 1819. He was promoted to lieutenant on December 17, 1836, and to commander on September 14, 1855. At the beginning of 1861 he had been in the navy for 41 years: more than 18 years in sea service, 9 years in assignments ashore, and 13 years awaiting orders in a navy that had too many officers for available positions. At the beginning of the Civil War, Godon had command of the screw steamer sloop Mohican in the African Squadron. Returning to the Boston Navy Yard with the remainder of the squadron in October 1861, Godon continued in command of the Mohican, now in the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. Godon took part in the capture of Port Royal, South Carolina, in November. He remained with the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron and in command of the Mohican until August 1862, when having transported men to be discharged to Philadelphia, he was assigned command of the steam sloop Powhatan. He was promoted to captain, with date of rank effective July 16, 1862. Promoted to commodore effective January 2, 1863, Godon remained with the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron until March 11, 1863, when he was relieved because of poor health. After his recovery and shore duty at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, Godon assumed command of the steamer Susquehanna in August 1863 and was ordered to search for the Confederate commerce raiders Florida and Tallahassee off the northeast coast of the United States. In October 1864 Godon was assigned to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron. He commanded the Fourth Division in the two attacks on Fort Fisher, on December 24–27, 1864, and January 13–15, 1865. At the end of March 1865 Godon was selected to command the reconstituted Brazil Squadron as acting rear admiral. In mid-May he was at Hampton Roads preparing to sail when he was ordered to the West Indies to intercept the Confederate ironclad Stonewall. Godon located the Stonewall at Havana, where Cuban authorities had seized it. After arranging for its transfer to the United States, Godon proceeded to take up station off Brazil.

262 |â•‡ Goldsborough, John Rodgers

Promoted to rear admiral effective July 25, 1866, Godon continued in command of the Brazil Squadron until the autumn of 1867. He was then on awaiting orders status until May 1868, when he assumed command of the New York (Brooklyn) Navy Yard. He was placed once again on awaiting orders in October 1870, then on the retired list on June 18, 1871. Godon died at Blois, France, on May 17, 1879. Spencer C. Tucker See also Boston Navy Yard; Brooklyn Navy Yard; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Florida, CSS; Fort Fisher Campaign; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Philadelphia Navy Yard; Port Royal Sound, Battle of; Powhatan, USS; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Stonewall, CSS; Tallahassee, CSS


Goldsborough, John Rodgers Birth Date: July 2, 1808 Death Date: June 22, 1877 U.S. Navy officer. John Rodgers Goldsborough was born in Washington, D.C., on July 2, 1808. The younger brother of future U.S. Navy admiral Louis M. Goldsborough, he received a midshipman’s warrant on November 16, 1824, and was attached to the sloop Warren in the Mediterranean Squadron from 1824 to 1830. During this time he distinguished himself in a fight with Greek pirates by leading only 18 men to capture the pirate ship Helene, which had four guns and 59 men aboard. Goldsborough was advanced to passed midshipman on April 28, 1832. He was promoted to lieutenant on September 6, 1837. Between 1844 and 1850, Goldsborough was assigned to the U.S. Coast Survey. He was promoted to commander on September 14, 1855. During the Civil War, from May 1861 to September 1863, Goldsborough was assigned to the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. In command of the steamer Union, he initiated the blockade of Savannah. On August 9, 1861, while in the Union, he recaptured the schooner George G. Baker, which had been taken earlier that day by the Confederate privateer schooner York. Pursuing the York, he forced it ashore off Cape Hatteras, where its crew burned the ship to prevent its capture.

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Goldsborough made captain on July 16, 1862, and was the senior officer in the blockade of Charleston while commanding the side-wheeler steamer Florida. From March to September 1863, Goldsborough commanded the screw frigate Colorado in the West Gulf Blockading Squadron, having charge of Union blockaders off Mobile Bay. In November 1863 Goldsborough became the inspector of ordnance at the navy yard in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. In 1865 Goldsborough commanded the steam sloop Shenandoah, first in the South Atlantic Squadron off Brazil, and then during 1866–1868 in the Asiatic Squadron, in which the ship called at Siam (now Thailand), and at ports in Japan and Korea. Goldsborough was promoted to commodore on April 13, 1867, and transferred his pennant to the screw sloop Hartford in January 1868. His last years in the navy were spent in command of the Mare Island Navy Yard and the naval station at Mound City, Illinois. Goldsborough retired as a commodore on July 2, 1870. He died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on June 22, 1877. Spencer C. Tucker See also Coast Survey, U.S.; Goldsborough, Louis Malesherbes; Hartford, USS; Letters of Marque and Reprisal; Mare Island Navy Yard; Mobile Bay; Mound City Naval Station; Portsmouth Navy Yard; Privateers; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Browning, Robert M., Jr. Success Is All That Was Expected: The South Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War. Dulles, VA: Brassey’s, 2002. Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969.

Goldsborough, Louis Malesherbes Birth Date: February 18, 1805 Death Date: February 20, 1877 U.S. Navy admiral. Born in Washington, D.C., on February 18, 1805, Louis M. Goldsborough received a warrant in the U.S. Navy as a midshipman at age 7 on June 18, 1812, but he did not begin active service until February 18, 1816, at age 11. He was promoted to lieutenant on January 13, 1825. In September 1827 Goldsborough led a boarding party from the schooner Porpoise to rescue the British merchant brig Comet, which had been taken by Mediterranean pirates. It was Goldsborough who proposed the creation of a Depot of Charts and Instruments (later the U.S. Hydrographic Office) as a central office to collect the charts and logbooks being stored at various navy yards. Created in 1830, the office eventually proved an invaluable source of oceanographic data. After serving as the office commander for two years, Goldsborough took leave

264 |â•‡ Goldsborough, Louis Malesherbes

from the navy, helped settle German immigrants in Florida, and commanded a mounted volunteer company in the Second Seminole War (1835–1842). Returning to the navy, Goldsborough was commissioned a commander on September 8, 1841. During the Mexican-American War (1846–1848) he participated in the assaults on Veracruz and Tuxpan and led a commission that explored California and Oregon during 1849–1850. He was superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, during 1853–1857 and was promoted to captain on September 14, 1855. In 1859 he took command of the Brazil Squadron and was holding that post when the Civil War began. In January 1861 Goldsborough had been in the navy for 48 years: some 17 years in service afloat, 11 years in assignments ashore, and almost 19 years awaiting assignment in a navy with too many officers for available billets. Appointed commander of the newly organized North Atlantic Blockading Squadron on October 29, 1861, Goldsborough was charged with choking off seaborne traffic to Virginia and North Carolina. On February 7, 1862, he led a squadron of 20 warships and 60 transports in support of an amphibious assault by Brigadier General Ambrose Burnside on Roanoke Island, North Carolina. Three days later, Goldsborough’s ships attacked the Confederate Mosquito Fleet (small vessels converted to gunboats) at Elizabeth City, North Carolina, destroying or capturing all but two of them, one of which was scuttled. Goldsborough’s squadron then helped the Union troops secure New Bern and Fort Macon, which commanded the southern approach to Pamlico Sound, North Carolina. In March 1862 Goldsborough was ordered to provide naval support for Major General George B. McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign, but wary of the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia, he kept his forces concentrated at Hampton Roads, Virginia. After the capture of Norfolk on May 9, and the destruction of the Virginia on May 11, Goldsborough ordered an advance up the James River to shell Richmond into submission. On May 15 five ships of Goldsborough’s squadron, including the ironclads Galena and Monitor, pushed up the James from Fort Monroe. They were halted by Confederate artillery and river obstructions at Drewry’s Bluff, seven miles south of Richmond. Goldsborough urged McClellan to deploy troops to help reduce the fort, but McClellan focused on pressing his own more cautious offensive from the east, which ended in failure. On July 6 President Abraham Lincoln placed the James River gunboats under the separate command of Commodore Charles Wilkes. This infuriated Goldsborough, who asked to be relieved. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, displeased with Goldsborough’s performance in the campaign, concurred. Although Goldsborough was promoted to rear admiral on July 16 and took command of the European Squadron on July 18, 1865, his combat career was over. After the Civil War, Goldsborough returned to Washington, where he commanded the Washington Navy Yard from 1868 until his retirement in October 1873. He died in Washington on February 20, 1877. Timothy Neeno

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See also Amphibious Warfare; Blockade of the Confederacy; Drewry’s Bluff, First Battle of; Fort Monroe, Virginia; Galena, USS; Hampton Roads, Virginia; Ironclads, Confederate; Ironclads, Union; James River; Lincoln, Abraham; Lynch, William Francis; Monitor, USS; Mosquito Fleet; Naval Academy, United States; New Bern, North Carolina, Capture of; Norfolk Navy Yard; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Richmond, Virginia; Roanoke Island, North Carolina, Union Capture of; Virginia, CSS; Washington Navy Yard; Welles, Gideon; Wilkes, Charles

References Browning, Robert M., Jr. From Cape Charles to Cape Fear: The North Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1993. Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Dougherty, Kevin, and Michael J. Moore. The Peninsular Campaign of 1862: A Military Analysis. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2005. Reynolds, Clark G. Famous American Admirals. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press. 2002. Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001.

Gosport Navy Yard See Norfolk Navy Yard

Grand Gulf, Battle of Event Date: April 29, 1863 Union attempt by Rear Admiral David D. Porter’s Mississippi Squadron to neutralize strong Confederate fortifications at Grand Gulf, on the east bank of the Mississippi River, 25 miles south of Vicksburg. This operation was part of Major General Ulysses S. Grant’s Second Vicksburg Campaign and was designed to clear the way for his troops to cross the river from the Louisiana to the Mississippi side at that point. At Grand Gulf the Confederates had established two batteries mounting 13 heavy guns, including 3 rifled pieces. Porter proceeded against Grand Gulf at 7:00 a.m. on April 29, 1863, with the Benton, Louisville, Carondelet, Mound City, Pittsburg, Tuscumbia, and Lafayette. The gunboat General Price carried troops and towed transports past the batteries. The engagement lasted more than six hours, with the Union ships firing more than 1,000 rounds. Although Union shelling soon silenced the lower battery and caused upper battery fire to slacken, most of the ships were damaged in turn. Porter’s flagship, the

266 |â•‡ Grand Gulf, Mississippi, Union Shelling of

ironclad Benton, was struck 47 times. In all, Porter’s ships sustained 18 killed and 56 wounded, most of them in the Benton, where a Confederate shell entered the ship’s casemate and exploded. The ironclad Tuscumbia was also struck hard and badly damaged. Grant, meanwhile, offloaded his men from the transports and marched them two miles past the batteries. At 6:00 p.m. the Union warships safely escorted all the transports past the batteries. Learning from an escaped slave of another landing site with a road to the interior, Grant ordered a crossing there, at Bruinsburg, Mississippi, six miles downriver. On April 30, Porter’s ships began ferrying Major General John McClernand’s and James B. McPherson’s corps across the Mississippi to move against Vicksburg to the north. Gary D. Joiner and Spencer C. Tucker See also Benton, USS; Cairo-Class River Ironclads; Carondelet, USS; Eads, James Buchanan; Ironclads, Union; Louisville, USS; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Mound City, USS; Pittsburg, USS; Porter, David Dixon; Riverine Warfare; Vicksburg Campaign

References Joiner, Gary D. Mr. Lincoln’s Brown Water Navy: The Mississippi Squadron. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007. Shea, William L., and Terrence J. Winschel. Vicksburg Is the Key: The Struggle for the Mississippi River. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Grand Gulf, Mississippi, Union Shelling of Event Date: May 26, 1862 On May 24, 1862, after Confederate defenses at Vicksburg were found too strong, Union transports that had moved toward the city, escorted by ships of Flag Officer David G. Farragut’s West Gulf Blockading Squadron, were ordered to drop back down the river. In the process they came under fire from a Confederate field battery of four guns at Grand Gulf, Mississippi. The transports Laurel Hill and Ceres were both hit, with the Laurel sustaining one killed and two wounded. On being informed of this, Captain Thomas Tingey Craven of the steam sloop Brooklyn ordered the gunboats Kineo (Lieutenant George M. Ransom) and Katahdin (Lieutenant George H. Preble) to proceed back upriver and destroy the town. Shortly thereafter, Craven encountered Farragut proceeding down the river, and he then approved Craven’s order. Craven followed the two gunboats in the Brooklyn. The Kineo was first to arrive at Grand Gulf, where it immediately took up position and was the first to fire. Shortly after the Union firing began, white flags appeared, and Craven ordered his ships to cease firing. Craven then received a

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delegation from the town, which had a population of some 400; they begged him not to destroy Grand Gulf and blamed the earlier firing on Confederate “marauders,” over whom they had no control. Craven took a hard line and at first told the town representatives to remove the women and children because he was determined to set fire to that place. Aghast at the prospect, the city representatives continued to plead with Craven, who decided to confer with U.S. Army brigadier general Thomas Williams, whose troop ships had been the object of the Confederate attack and who had just arrived on the scene himself. Williams and Craven agreed to spare Grand Gulf in return for a considerable haul of livestock, poultry, and wood. Union ships returned to Grand Gulf, which had by then been significantly fortified, for a fierce ship-to-shore duel on April 29, 1863. Spencer C. Tucker See also Brooklyn, USS; Craven, Thomas Tingey; Farragut, David Glasgow; Grand Gulf, Battle of; Mississippi River; Preble, George Henry; Riverine Warfare; Vicksburg Campaign; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 18. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1904. U.S. Navy Department, Naval History Division. Civil War Naval Chronology, 1861– 1865. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971.

Grape Shot See Artillery Projectiles, Naval

Greenville, Mississippi, Union Operations in the Vicinity of Start Date: May 2, 1863 End Date: May 9, 1863 On May 2, 1863, the Union steamer Era was fired on in the Mississippi River by a Confederate guerrilla shore battery of three field guns at Argyle Landing, some three miles above Greenville, Mississippi. The U.S. Navy stern-wheeler Cricket, commanded by Acting Lieutenant Amos R. Langthorne, then engaged the Confederates ashore for some three hours, apparently with little or no effect. The next day Langthorne, under the mistaken impression that the Confederate guns had relocated downriver, departed in the Cricket to convoy another steamer, the Champion, downriver. In the Cricket’s absence, the Confederates again opened fire on a Union steamer, Minnesota, in the same location as the day before, destroying it

268 |â•‡ Gregory, Francis Hoyt

and its tow of two barges containing coal and stores. The timberclad Conestoga, under Lieutenant Commander Thomas O. Selfridge, then arrived and drove the Confederates off. Informed of events and unhappy with Langthorne’s decisions, Selfridge ordered Lieutenant Joshua Bishop, of the river gunboat General Bragg, to destroy Confederate property in the vicinity of the incidents. This action was carried out on May 9, 1863. Bishop then proceeded to Argyle Landing and there sent ashore a landing party of 67 soldiers and marines, along with 30 seamen from the Rattler, Cricket, and his own ship. A rather large Confederate force was discovered, but Bishop kept them at bay with fire from the General Bragg’s 4.2-inch (30-pounder) Parrott rifled gun. By that evening the landing party had destroyed the mansions, barns, and outhouses belonging to the Blandonia and Roach plantations, along with “their magnificent and costly furniture, splendid library, etc.” Following this action, the ships returned to their normal duty stations. The action at Argyle Landing is typical of such encounters along the Mississippi both before and after the Union secured control of that river. Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Conestoga, USS; Marine Corps, U.S.; Mississippi River; Riverine Warfare; Selfridge, Thomas Oliver, Jr.; Timberclads

References U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 24. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1911. U.S. Navy Department, Naval History Division. Civil War Naval Chronology, 1861– 1865. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971.

Gregory, Francis Hoyt Birth Date: October 9, 1789 Death Date: October 4, 1866 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Norwalk, Connecticut, on October 9, 1789, Francis Hoyt Gregory received a midshipman’s warrant on January 26, 1809. He was promoted to lieutenant on June 14, 1814; to master commandant on April 28, 1828; and to captain on January 18, 1838. Gregory assumed command of the frigate Raritan, assigned to the Brazil Squadron in 1844. In May 1846 the Raritan was part of Commodore David Connor’s Home Squadron in the Gulf of Mexico. Convinced that hostilities with Mexico were imminent, Connor moved part of his squadron from Veracruz to a position off the mouth of the Brazos River, where the ships might be able to support U.S. ground troops under Brigadier General Zachary Taylor. When the commander of Fort Polk,

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the American supply base at Port Isabel, who was aware of fighting between U.S. and Mexican forces, asked Connor for assistance in defending the fort, Connor sent to his aid 500 sailors and marines under Gregory’s command. Believing from a false report that Taylor had been defeated in battle, Gregory requested permission to go to Taylor’s rescue. Knowing that the sailors and marines were not trained for land combat, Connor refused. In any event, the report of a defeat turned out to be false, for Taylor had won the Battle of Palo Alto on May 8. With the Mexican troop withdrawal across the Rio Grande, Gregory’s force returned to its ships on May 13. The Raritan then took part in the blockade of the Mexican port of Veracruz and capture of Tampico on November 14. In December, with the enlistments of Gregory’s crew about to expire and the frigate Cumberland in need of repair, Connor ordered Captain French Forrest of the Cumberland and his crew to switch places with Gregory’s crew, and Gregory then sailed that frigate to the Norfolk (Gosport) Navy Yard for repairs. During 1848–1851 Gregory commanded the African Squadron. At the beginning of 1861, Gregory had been in the navy for 52 years: almost 20 years in sea service, 14 years ashore, and 18 years awaiting orders in a navy that had too many officers for assignments. Gregory was placed on the retired list on December 21, 1861, by reason of his age. During the Civil War, however, Gregory supervised the construction of gunboats in private shipyards for the U.S. Navy. He was commissioned a rear admiral on the retired list with the effective date of July 16, 1862. Having served 57 years in the navy, Gregory died in Brooklyn, New York, on October 4, 1866. Three of his sons were also naval officers. Spencer C. Tucker See also Marine Corps, U.S.; Navy, U.S.; Norfolk Navy Yard

References Bauer, K. Jack. Surfboats and Horse Marines: U.S. Naval Operations in the Mexican War, 1846–1848. Annapolis, MD: United States Naval Institute, 1969. Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001.

Guerre de Course French term meaning the destruction of commerce. Considered an indirect strategy or secondary objective within a more aggressive strategy, the guerre de course has on occasion proven effective as a means of weakening or defeating an enemy at

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sea. In the late 19th century, the French Jeune École and American naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan promoted the guerre de course, although Mahan focused on a strong navy and fleet engagements, or the guerre d’escadre, as the key to maritime strategy. The target of the guerre de course is commercial shipping; the more dependent a nation is on trade, the more vulnerable that state is to such a strategy. Employed in ancient times by the Greek city-states, Carthage, and Rome, the strategy of attacking commercial shipping has been the one traditionally utilized by weaker naval powers. The British and the Dutch fought several wars directed against the commerce of the other during the 17th century. During the War of American Independence and War of 1812, Britain found its merchant fleets attacked by American cruisers and privateers. During the U.S. Civil War, the Confederacy employed a number of commerce raiders, the most famous of which was the Alabama, to wage such a strategy against U.S. merchant shipping in order to drive up insurance rates and bring economic pressure on the North to negotiate an end to the war. The Germans employed such a strategy during World War I and World War II by utilizing individual raiders and submarines against Allied shipping, but the most successful practitioner of the guerre de course to date has been that of the U.S. Navy against Japan during World War II. Jim Birdseye See also Alabama, CSS; Alabama Claims; Blockade-Runners; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Letters of Marque and Reprisal; Mahan, Alfred Thayer; Privateers; Prize Cases; Strategy, Confederate Naval

References Hearn, Chester G. Gray Raiders of the Sea: How Eight Confederate Warships Destroyed the Union’s High Seas Commerce. Camden, ME: International Marine Publishing, 1992. Mahan, Alfred Thayer. The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783. Boston: Little, Brown, 1890.

Gulf Blockading Squadron One of three Union Navy blockading squadrons formed by Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles at the beginning of the Civil War to cover the Confederate coastline. The Gulf Blockading Squadron covered the greatest distance of the three, from Key West, Florida, to Brownsville, Texas. Appointed to command the squadron on May 7, 1861, Flag Officer William Mervine took up station in the Gulf of Mexico on June 8, 1861. Mervine, a veteran of 52 years service, had joined the navy as a midshipman in 1809. With only 15 ships to cover a vast area, Mervine found his problems compounded by the loss of the Pensacola Navy Yard at the beginning of the war, leaving Key West as the only base open to his squadron on the Gulf.

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Obtaining a more westerly facility was essential, especially in any operation against New Orleans, and in September 1861 the squadron secured Ship Island, some 12 miles south of Biloxi in Mississippi Sound and midway between Mobile Bay and New Orleans. Meanwhile, Mervine’s perceived lack of action led Welles to relieve him from command. On September 6, 1861, Welles named Captain William McKean to command the squadron. In early October 1861 McKean sent Captain John Pope with the screw sloop Richmond and three other ships up the Mississippi River to the Head of the Passes to cut off blockade-runners from reaching or sailing from New Orleans. The ships of the squadron fled in confusion, however, when the Confederates attacked early on October 12 with the ironclad ram Manassas (one gun), five armed steamers, and three fire rafts pulled by tugs. Later the Richmond and another Union warship had to jettison all their cannon to pass over the bar and escape. The action, trumpeted throughout the South as “Pope’s Run,” proved a considerable embarrassment to the U.S. Navy, and Pope was cashiered. Although the Union troops did not return to the Head of the Passes for several months, they continued to control the river’s mouth, and the effectiveness of the Union blockade steadily increased with the arrival of additional ships. During November 22–23, 1861, McKean utilized the screw frigate Niagara (flag) and screw sloop Richmond, supported by batteries at Fort Pickens, to bombard Confederate Fort McRae and the Pensacola Navy Yard. The Union shelling largely reduced McRae, but accomplished little else. In late 1861 the Navy Department decided to split the Gulf Blockading Squadron into two separate squadrons. This went into effect formally on February 20, 1862, when the Gulf Squadron was split into an East Gulf Blockading Squadron and a West Gulf Blockading Squadron. McKean retained command of the eastern squadron with responsibility from Key West to Pensacola. Captain David G. Farragut took command of the western squadron that covered the coast from Pensacola to the Rio Grande River. Spencer C. Tucker See also Blockade Board; Blockade of the Confederacy; Blockade-Runners; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; East Gulf Blockading Squadron; Farragut, David Glasgow; Fort Pickens, Florida; Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, Relief Efforts and Beginning of the Civil War; Gulf of Mexico; Head of Passes, Battle of; Ironclads, Confederate; Manassas, CSS; McKean, William Wister; Mervine, William; Mississippi River; Mobile Bay; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Pensacola Navy Yard; Pope, John, Jr.; Richmond, USS; Riverine Warfare; Ship Island, Mississippi; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Strategy, Union Naval; Welles, Gideon; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Musicant, Ivan. Divided Waters: The Naval History of the Civil War. New York: Â�HarperCollins, 1995. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

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Gulf of Mexico Large body of saltwater, a subset of the Atlantic Ocean, covering 615,000 square miles. Approximately oval in shape, the Gulf of Mexico is 810 nautical miles across at its widest point. Almost half the Gulf of Mexico consists of shallow, intertidal waters. Much of the U.S. Gulf Coast, from Texas to Florida, has very shallow waters, making the region susceptible to devastating tidal surges during severe storms and hurricanes. The Gulf of Mexico is bounded on the northwest, north, and northeast by the U.S. Gulf Coast (Texas to Florida), on the south and southwest by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. The deepest part of the Gulf of Mexico is known as the Sigsbee Deep, located about 200 miles southeast of Brownsville, Texas. Part of an underwater trough, Sigsbee Deep is 14,880 feet deep. The first European to explore the Gulf of Mexico was Amerigo Vespucci in 1497. A decade later, Hernán Cortés helped conquer Cuba and Hispaniola, and in 1518 he began his conquest of Mexico via the Gulf. In 1526 Pánfilo Narvaéz laid claim to much of the area that would eventually become the U.S. Gulf Coast. Later, the French along with the Spanish would lay claim to most of the Gulf Coast, although large numbers of Europeans did not settle the area until the early 19th century. Thirty-three major U.S. river systems, draining 31 states, empty into the Gulf of Mexico. Among these is the United States’ most important river—the Mississippi— which flows into the Gulf downriver from New Orleans, Louisiana. Control of the Gulf Coast was thus critical to controlling shipping on the Mississippi River and cities like New Orleans; Mobile, Alabama; and Pensacola, Florida. The Straits of Florida was likewise crucial in controlling access to the Gulf itself. The Gulf Stream originates in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, bringing with it a powerful current of warm water that parallels the east coast of North America. In the summer months, the Gulf’s relatively shallow waters result in high sea temperatures, which periodically fuel large hurricanes that have, over the years, wrecked many areas along the Gulf Coast. In 1861 the Union navy created the Gulf Blockading Squadron as part of a larger strategy that sought to blockade Confederate ports from Virginia to Texas. The first Gulf Blockading Squadron was tasked with covering the coast from Brownsville, Texas, to Key West, Florida. In late 1861 the Navy Department split the Blockading Squadron into two smaller squadrons—the East Gulf Blockading Squadron and West Gulf Blockading Squadron. The eastern half covered the area from Pensacola to Key West; the western half covered the area from the Rio Grande River (in Texas) to Pensacola. Incidentally, the Pensacola Navy Yard, a major naval facility, was controlled by the Confederates until May 1862, at which time it fell to Union control. Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr. See also Blockade of the Confederacy; East Gulf Blockading Squadron; Galveston, Battle of; Galveston, Texas; Galveston, Texas, Union Capture of; Gulf Blockading Squadron; Mississippi River; Mobile Bay; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; Pensacola Navy Yard; Strategy, Union Naval; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

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References Gore, Robert H. The Gulf of Mexico: A Treasury of Resources in the American Mediterranean. Sarasota, FL: Pineapple, 1992. Musicant, Ivan. Divided Waters: The Naval History of the Civil War. New York: HarperÂ� Collins, 1995. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Gunboats, Confederate See Cottonclads

Gunner’s Tools To service muzzle-loading cannon aboard ship, specific tools were required. Augers and drills were used to clear the vent, and a lead cover sealed it. The gunner’s pick was a sharp pointed tool used to clear the gun vent and pierce the powder bag. The ladle was a copper scoop affixed to a long wooden shaft. It was used to measure and dump powder in the bore of the cannon prior to the invention of the cartridge bag. After the cartridge bag was in use, the ladle remained handy in the loading or withdrawing of a round. Ignition was accomplished by means of a cannon lock and primer. The quoin, a wooden wedge, was used to set the proper elevation of the gun, although most Civil War ordnance was elevated by means of a screw. The rammer, a pole with a thick wooden head, was used to ram powder, shot, and wad down the bore of the gun. A scraper was used to clear heavy fouling from the gun. Often the opposite end of the rammer held the sponge, a wooden cylinder covered in lambskin, about one foot long and of the same diameter as the shot. Mounted on a long staff and dampened with water, it was used to clean the bore and extinguish any live sparks after firing prior to the insertion of another powder charge. The tampion was a plug that fit over the muzzle of the gun to keep out wind and weather. A simple water bucket was employed to wet the sponge. The wormer looked like a pair of intertwined corkscrews and was used to remove wads and cartridge bag fragments from the bore. The gunner’s quadrant, which resembled a carpenter’s square with a curved graduated scale underneath and a plumb bob attached to the top, was used to set elevation for the gun. The gun crew used handspikes, six-foot poles shod with iron, to manhandle the cannon into proper position. John Foley

274 |â•‡ Gwin, William See also Artillery Projectiles, Naval; Dahlgren Guns; Naval Ordnance

References Batchelor, John, and Ian Hogg. Artillery. New York: Scribner, 1972. Tucker, Spencer C. Arming the Fleet: U.S. Navy Ordnance in the Muzzle-Loading Era. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989.

Gwin, William Birth Date: December 6, 1832 Death Date: January 3, 1863 U.S. naval officer who served with distinction along the rivers of the western theater during the Civil War. Born on December 6, 1832, in Columbus, Indiana, Gwin received a midshipman’s warrant on April 7, 1847, and was promoted to passed midshipman on June 19, 1853. He served in the Brazil and African squadrons and was promoted to master on September 15, 1855, and to lieutenant the next day. At the beginning of the Civil War, Gwin served briefly with the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron in the side-wheeler frigate Susquehanna, before being transferred west in early 1862. As commander of the timberclad gunboat Tyler, Gwin participated in the Battle of Fort Henry (February 6, 1862), Phelps’s Raid up the Tennessee River (February 6–10, 1862), and the Battle of Fort Donelson (February 12–16, 1862). The Tyler, along with the timberclad Lexington, protected Pittsburg Landing along the Tennessee River, so that Union troops under Major General Ulysses S. Grant could be deployed in March 1862. The two same timberclads then played an important role in helping prevent Confederate forces from overrunning Grant’s positions during the first day’s fighting of the Battle of Shiloh (April 6–7, 1862), which allowed Grant to be reinforced U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander William and turn the tide of battle the next day. Gwin, captain of the ironclad Benton, who On July 15, 1862, the Tyler engaged was mortally wounded in combat on the the Confederate ironclad ArkanYazoo River on December 27, 1862. sas in the Yazoo River but escaped Portrait by J.C. Buttre. (Naval History and Heritage Command) destruction. Promoted to lieutenant

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commander with date of rank from July 16, Gwin took command of the ironclad Benton in December 1862. While shelling Confederate positions at Drumgould’s Bluff on December 27, 1862, Gwin was mortally wounded when he left the protection of his ship’s armored pilothouse to assess the accuracy of fire. Gwin succumbed to his wounds on January 3, 1863. William E. Whyte III See also Arkansas, CSS; Benton, USS; Cumberland River; Fort Donelson, Battle of; Fort Henry, Battle of; Lexington, USS; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Phelps’s Raid; Pittsburg Landing; Riverine Warfare; Tennessee River; Timberclads; Tyler, USS; Yazoo River

References Smith, Myron J., Jr. The Timberclads in the Civil War: The Lexington, Conestoga and Tyler on the Western Waters. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 21. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1908.


H Hampton Roads, Battle of Start Date: March 8, 1862 End Date: March 9, 1862 The Battle of Hampton Roads during March 8–9, 1862, occurred against the backdrop of the Peninsula Campaign, Union major general George B. McClellan’s plan to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond by a move up the peninsula between the James and York rivers. Union ships gathered in Hampton Roads, however, were threatened with destruction by the Confederate ironclad Virginia. The casemated Virginia was the reincarnation of the U.S. Navy steam frigate Merrimack, burned and scuttled at the Norfolk Navy Yard in April 1861. The Virginia mounted 10 guns (6 IX-inch Dahlgrens and 2 6.4-inch single-banded Brooke rifles in broadside, and 2 7-inch single-banded Brooke rifles in pivot mounts at bow and stern). It also boasted a 1,500-pound ram. The ship had inadequate and unreliable engines, and steering so sluggish that it took 30–40 minutes and four miles to bring the ship about 180 degrees. An error in calculating its displacement also meant that the ship rode too high in the water, and in places its armor protection barely extended to the waterline. Flag Officer Franklin Buchanan, in charge of Confederate naval defenses on the James, took charge of the ship and its crew of 320 men, including 55 marines. Buchanan was determined to drive the Union ships from Fort Monroe, and as soon as the Virginia was ready, at 11:00 a.m. on March 8, 1862, he sortied from Norfolk. Conditions were ideal. The day was clear and bright, and the water calm. In addition to his flagship, Buchanan had two small steamer tenders, the Beaufort and Raleigh, mounting a total of 3 guns. He also had the three gunboats of Commander John R. Tucker’s James River Squadron: the steamers Patrick Henry and Jamestown (each with 10 guns) and the former tug Teaser with a single gun. These six Confederate ships, mounting 35 guns, faced Union ships mounting 204 heavy guns. The larger Union ships were the screw frigates Minnesota (40 guns) and Roanoke (40 guns), the sailing frigates Congress (50 guns) and St. Lawrence (50 guns), and the razee (cut down) sailing sloop Cumberland (24 guns). At about 1:30 p.m. on March 8 the Virginia rounded Sewell’s Point and entered Hampton Roads, the large basin into which the James, Nansemond, and Elizabeth rivers empty before Chesapeake Bay. Union troops occupied its northern shore: Newport News, Hampton, and Fort Monroe. Confederate forces held the southern shore, including Norfolk and Portsmouth. Although the Roads is seven miles 277

278 |â•‡ Hampton Roads, Battle of

The USS Monitor (right) and the CSS Virginia (left) battling on March 9, 1862. Their engagement in Hampton Roads was the first in history between two ironclad warships. (National Archives)

across, the Virginia required at least 22 feet of water to operate, effectively confining it to an area never more than two miles across. The crews on the Union ships had ample time to prepare, as it took the Virginia more than an hour to steam across the Roads. The two nearest Union ships, the Cumberland and Congress, were the first likely targets. At 2:20 p.m. the little Beaufort opened the battle with a shot from its lone 32-pounder against the Congress. Buchanan, meanwhile, ordered the Virginia to make for the Cumberland. During this time the tide shifted so that the Cumberland’s stern faced the oncoming Virginia, with few of its guns able to bear. Buchanan opened fire at about 1,500 yards. A shell from the Virginia’s 7-inch Brooke pivot gun on the bow caused considerable damage and casualties on the Cumberland’s starboard quarter. As the Virginia lumbered on, it came abreast of the Congress, which loosed a broadside, but none of the shot entered open gun ports. At the same time, the Virginia’s response from its four starboard guns caused extensive damage and casualties on the Congress. Buchanan kept straight for the Cumberland, however. Fearful that, even at six knots, his ship might strike too hard and become embedded in the Union sloop’s wooden hull, Buchanan ordered the Virginia’s engines stopped at about 50 yards distance, and the ironclad glided forward on momentum. The Virginia struck the Cumberland at an almost right angle on its starboard side. The ram tore a gaping hole below the waterline, and the Cumberland began to sink.

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It almost took the ironclad with it, but when the pressure became too great, the ram twisted off in the Union ship as the Virginia’s 17-foot propeller pulled the ironclad away. The Cumberland, which sustained 121 dead, continued to fire against the ironclad, even as it sank, eliciting admiration from the Confederates. The Virginia then turned to attack the Congress. Although the Virginia was only several hundred yards away from the Congress, the ironclad took nearly half an hour to come about because of its deep draft and poor steering. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Joseph B. Smith, captain of the Congress, ordered the armed tug Zouave to tow his ship into shallower water under the protection of Union batteries at Newport News. This action prevented the Virginia from ramming. Unfortunately for Smith, the tide swung the stern of the Congress so that only 2 of its 50 guns could be brought to bear on the Virginia. At the same time, the Raleigh and Beaufort maintained a steady fire, keeping the Congress’s gun crews occupied. At about 4:00 p.m. the Virginia was at last in position. At the same time the three James River Squadron ships exited the river and began exchanging fire with Union shore batteries at Newport News. Buchanan now positioned his ship about 150 yards off the stern of the Congress and opened a deadly raking fire. In short order, 100 men, a quarter of the Union ship’s crew, were casualties. Both of the Union ship’s stern guns were soon disabled, and Lieutenant Smith was killed, decapitated by a shell fragment. Still, the Union frigate took nearly an hour of punishment before it struck. When the Congress surrendered, Buchanan directed that the Beaufort and Raleigh take off the prisoners and burn the ship. But as this was being effected, Union troops on shore several hundred yards away opened up fire with small arms. Several Confederates were killed, and Lieutenant William H. Parker of the Beaufort was among the wounded. Parker ordered the Beaufort to cast off and move to safety. Thirty prisoners were aboard, but the Beaufort suffered some 10 casualties from the Union shore fire. Buchanan was furious at Parker for not burning the Union ship, but he was also incensed at what he considered a breach of the laws of the sea, although the Union troops on shore certainly had not surrendered. Lieutenant Robert Minor of the Virginia then set out for the Congress with eight men in one of the ironclad’s boats. Despite a white flag, he too came under fire and was wounded. He then ordered the boat back to the ironclad. Buchanan believed that the fire was coming from the Congress, which was not true, but he ordered the Virginia’s gunners to set it alight with hot shot. The excitable Buchanan also climbed to the top of the exposed deck of the Virginia and began firing at the troops on shore with a musket. Hit in the thigh by a musket ball, he was carried below, where he was forced to transfer command to Lieutenant Catesby ap Roger Jones. Jones carried out Buchanan’s order to continue firing hot shot into the Congress until it was alight. Sometime after 5:00 p.m., the Congress was engulfed in flames.


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The Virginia’s pilots now insisted that the ship return to its base before dark or risk running aground. The tide had receded, and the ironclad would be restricted to the channel. The ship was also leaking at the bow, and its crew was exhausted. Given the circumstances, Jones decided to retire, confident he could complete his work the next day. The battle had been a Confederate triumph. The Virginia had destroyed two major Union warships with 250 men dead, 75 wounded, and 26 captured. Confederate losses were only 2 dead and 8 wounded. Although it had been struck more than 100 times, damage to the Virginia was minor. At about 8:00 p.m. the Virginia dropped anchor off Sewell’s Point. That same evening, a strange warship arrived in the Roads. It was the Union ironclad Monitor. Designed by John Ericsson, the Monitor, like the Virginia, was only just commissioned. The Monitor had but two guns—XI-inch Dahlgren smoothbores—in a single large turret protected by 8 inches of iron plate. With only 18 inches of freeboard, the ship resembled a hat floating on the water. Lieutenant John L. Worden commanded a crew of 10 officers and 48 seamen. The men were exhausted from their two-day trip south from New York, during which the ironclad had nearly foundered on several occasions. At about 9:00 p.m. the Monitor pulled alongside the frigate Roanoke, where Worden conferred with Captain John Marston, senior Union officer in the Roads. Marston ordered Worden to defend the Minnesota, and at 1:00 a.m. on March 9 the Monitor anchored alongside the grounded Union flagship. Shortly thereafter, fires on the Congress reached the magazine, and that ship blew up. Few men on the Monitor slept that night. At about 6:00 a.m. on March 9, the Virginia got under way. The sea was again calm, and the day clear. Jones ordered the Virginia to make for the Union flagship. At 8:00 a.m. Worden saw the Virginia and its consorts steam out into the main channel and head for the Minnesota, and he immediately ordered battle preparations. The Monitor was far more maneuverable than the Virginia, but it also was only a fraction of the Confederate ship’s size and mounted but 2 guns to the 10 on the Virginia. There must have been serious doubts aboard the Monitor as to whether the ship would prove a worthy opponent. Jones intended to ignore the Union ironclad until he had finished off the Minnesota with hot shot. At about one mile from the grounded Union ship, Jones commenced fire. Almost immediately a round struck the Minnesota and started a fire. Shot from the Minnesota’s stern guns simply ricocheted off the Virginia’s armor. Worden now set the Monitor straight for the Virginia. The Minnesota and Virginia exchanged fire until the Monitor had closed the range. The Union ironclad’s small pilothouse forward prevented its guns from firing directly forward, so Worden conned the Monitor parallel to the Virginia. At 8:45 a.m. the Monitor fired the first shot of the battle.


The duel lasted three and a half hours. This time, the Virginia’s consorts were only spectators, for the Monitor’s heavy guns would have made short work of them. The battle was fought at very close range, from a few yards to more than 100. The crew of the Virginia was surprised that the Union guns did not inflict greater damage. Not a single shot struck the Virginia at its vulnerable waterline. The Confederates believed that the Monitor’s crew simply fired their guns as rapidly as possible (every five or six minutes) without aiming. The Virginia was also extremely vulnerable when it ran hard aground, and the Monitor, with half the draft, could circle its antagonist and fire at will. With the Virginia’s very survival now at stake and its boiler safety valves tied shut to provide maximum steam, the Virginia at length pulled free. Following two hours of battle, Worden disengaged to resupply with ammunition, which had to be hoisted up from a storage bin below deck through a scuttle that required the ship to be stationary. Jones took advantage of the respite to try to sink the Minnesota, but shoal water halted the Virginia almost a mile away from its target. Nonetheless, shot from its guns did damage the Union flagship. The Monitor then returned, and the struggle between the two ironclads resumed. With his fire having no apparent effect and unaware of the loss of his own ship’s ram, Jones decided to ram and then board the Union ship. Seeing a chance, Jones ordered his ship forward at full steam, but Worden was able to turn the more nimble Monitor aside, and it received only a glancing blow. The attempt actually hurt the Virginia more, opening up another hull leak. Virginia also sustained damage from the 20 hits that registered from 41 180-pound shell hits by the Monitor. In places the wooden backing behind the armor plate on the Confederate vessel was cracked and splintered. Although the more numerous Confederate guns fired many more shot and shells than did the Monitor, only 24 struck, and the only results were dents in the Monitor’s armor. A few minutes after noon, Worden’s attempt to ram the stern of the Virginia ended in a near miss. Just as the Union ship passed the stern of the Virginia, a 7-inch shell exploded in a direct hit on the Monitor’s pilothouse, stunning and temporarily blinding Worden. He ordered the Monitor to sheer off to assess damage, and the ironclad drifted away toward Fort Monroe. Executive Officer Samuel Greene, 22 years old, took command. Jones, meanwhile, decided to return to Norfolk for repairs. Greene declined to pursue, pursuant to his orders to protect the Minnesota. Each side subsequently claimed the actions of the other meant that its opponent was beaten. The battle in fact was a draw. Aboard the Monitor, Worden was the only serious casualty, while the Virginia sustained 2 dead and 19 wounded. The fight might have gone differently had the Virginia concentrated its fire on the Monitor’s pilothouse, a difficult target in the best of conditions, or if solid shot or bolts had been available for the rifled guns. On the other hand the Monitor’s fire should have been directed at its opponent’s waterline. Its guns should also have employed 30-pound powder charges instead of the 15 pounds decreed. Following an 1844 gun explosion, the Navy Department had decreed that no gun could be fired with a powder

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charge more than half that for which it had been designed. This order was revoked only after the Monitor-Virginia engagement. Ericsson was furious. He claimed that had the Monitor taken up position at 200 yards range with its guns exactly level and fired with the 30-pound charges he had sought, the shot would have gone clear through the Virginia. Tactically, the engagement between the two ironclads was a Northern victory. The Monitor had saved the flagship Minnesota and assured the safety of the Union transports and supply ships, hence continuing the Peninsula Campaign. But the South could claim a strategic victory, for as long as the Virginia remained in being, Norfolk and Richmond were safe from Union warships; and the Virginia’s mere presence acted as a brake on McClellan’s drive toward Richmond. The battle between the two ironclads was not renewed, but it did signal a new era in naval warfare. This first battle between ironclad vessels gave new impetus to the revolution in naval warfare then in progress. Both ships also became models for ironclad construction on their respective sides. Spencer C. Tucker See also Brooke Guns; Buchanan, Franklin; Dahlgren Guns; Ericsson, John; Fort Monroe, Virginia; Hampton Roads, Virginia; Ironclads, Confederate; Ironclads, Union; James River; James River Squadron, CSA; Jones, Catesby ap Roger; Marine Corps, CSA; Marston, John; Minnesota, USS; Monitor, USS; Monitor Mania; Norfolk Navy Yard; Parker, William Harwar; Raleigh, CSS; Richmond, Virginia; Smith, Joseph Bryant; Tucker, John Randolph; Virginia, CSS; Worden, John Lorimer

References Davis, William C. Duel between the First Ironclads. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975. De Kay, James Tertius. Monitor. New York: Walker, 1997. Holzer, Harold, and Tim Mulligan, eds. The Battle of Hampton Roads: New Perspectives on the USS Monitor and CSS Virginia. New York: Fordham University Press, 2006. Johnson, Robert Underwood, and Clarence Clough Buel, eds. Battles and Leaders of the Civil War: Being for the Most Part Contributions by Union and Confederate Officers. 4 vols. 1883; reprint, Secaucus, NJ: Castle, n.d. Quarstein, John V. C.S.S. Virginia: Mistress of Hampton Roads. Appomattox, VA: H. E. Howard, 2000. Smith, Gene A. Iron and Heavy Guns; Duel between the Monitor and Merrimac. Abilene, TX: McWhiney Foundation Press, 1998.

Hampton Roads, Virginia A key strategic location on the Virginia Atlantic coast for the Union naval blockade and land operations. Hampton Roads, roughly eight miles long, is the large basin into which the James, Nansemond, and Elizabeth rivers of Virginia empty before the Chesapeake Bay. Hampton Roads was strategically significant during the Civil War because the Confederate capital of Richmond lay upriver on the James.

284 |â•‡ Hampton Roads,Virginia

To the north, the Roads is bordered by the peninsula sandwiched between the York and James rivers; at its easternmost part, at Old Point Comfort, lay Fort Monroe, which Union forces controlled for the duration of the war. Its casemated batteries commanded all the approaches to Hampton Roads. The principal shipping channel lay between Fort Monroe and a small man-made stone island erected by Union forces. Known as Rip Raps, it was about a mile south of Fort Monroe, midway between it and the southern edge of the entrance to the Roads, known as Willoughby’s Point. Union artillery at Rip Raps and at Fort Monroe entirely controlled the channel. Two miles to the west of Willoughby’s Point, at Sewell’s Point, the Confederates erected their own gun batteries to guard the mouth of the Elizabeth River, while Union guns protected the mouth of the Nansemond River. The Hampton Roads area was first settled in May 1607 as a part of the Jamestown settlement. Three English ships first landed at Cape Henry on the Atlantic coast under orders of the London-based Virginia Company. Realizing that they were in a vulnerable location, however, the settlers moved westward until they located an island in a harbor that provided more shelter, which they called Jamestown Island. Hampton Roads received its distinctive name sometime in 1607. It is derived in two parts—“Hampton” was the name of one of the founders of the Virginia Company, and “Roads” is a shortened version of the nautical term “roadstead,” indicating a place less sheltered than a harbor where ships may ride at anchor. The Union used Hampton Roads to mass its blockading squadron after Virginia forces had taken possession of Norfolk and the Norfolk (Gosport) Navy Yard on April 21, 1861. On August 3, 1861, Hampton Roads was the site of the war’s first balloon reconnaissance flight; the balloon was sent aloft to evaluate Confederate batteries at Sewell’s Point. On March 8–9, 1862, Hampton Roads saw the first fight between two ironclads—CSS Virginia and USS Monitor—in history. The battle was inconclusive. On February 3, 1865, near Fort Monroe in Newport News, Virginia, aboard the River Queen, U.S. president Abraham Lincoln and secretary of state William H. Seward met with Confederate vice president Alexander H. Stephens, senator M. T. Hunter, and assistant secretary of war John A. Campbell in a futile effort to negotiate an end to hostilities. Paul Pierpaoli Jr. and Jeannine Loftus See also Balloons; Blockade of the Confederacy; Drewry’s Bluff, First Battle of; Fort Monroe, Virginia; Goldsborough, Louis Malesherbes; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Ironclads, Confederate; Ironclads, Union; James River; James River Squadron, CSA; Lincoln, Abraham; Monitor, USS; Norfolk Navy Yard; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Richmond, Virginia; Sewell’s Point, Virginia, U.S. Navy Shelling of; Virginia, CSS

References Frye, John. Hampton Roads and Four Centuries as a World’s Seaport: Roadstead. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 1996. Williams, David. A Peoples History of the Civil War: Struggles for the Meaning of Freedom. New York: New Press, 2005.

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Harriet Lane, USS The U.S. Navy side-wheeler steamer Harriet Lane, a two-master brigantine with one stack, was named after the niece of President James Buchanan and was the only steamer in the U.S. Revenue Service when the navy took possession of it in 1861. Built at New York by the firm of W. H. Webb, it was launched on November 20, 1857. It was transferred to the navy on September 17, 1861. The ship was 750 tons. It had a length of deck of 180 feet, and was 30 feet in breadth and 5 feet in draft. Fast, it had a speed of 12 knots. Crew complement was 100 officers and men. Although armament varied over its service life, in August 1861 it was armed with one 8-inch smoothbore and four 32-pounders, plus three Dahlgren boat howitzers (two 24-pounders and one 12-pounder). While still with the Revenue Service, the Harriet Lane served with the navy in the Paraguayan expedition of 1858–1859. It joined the U.S. Navy screw sloop Pawnee in escorting the supply ship Baltic during the attempted relief of the U.S. Army garrison at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, and it fired the first shot of the war by a U.S. Navy ship on April 12, 1861. It took part in the successful Union operation to capture Hatteras Inlet, North Carolina, but ran aground during August 28–29, 1861, and was forced to throw overboard its four 32-pounders to get free. Assigned to the Potomac Flotilla, it engaged Confederate batteries at Freestone Point, Virginia, on December 9, 1861. The Harriet Lane then served as Captain David D. Porter’s flagship in the mortar flotilla of the West Gulf Blockade Squadron and took part in the bombardment of Confederate forts Jackson and St. Philip below New Orleans on the Mississippi River beginning on April 18, 1862, and then joined the April 24 passage of these forts and the engagement with Confederate ships in the river by Flag Officer David G. Farragut’s squadron. The Harriet Lane then took part in the Union occupation of Confederate forts at Pensacola in May 1862 and in operations against Vicksburg during June–July 1862. It participated in the Union capture of Galveston, Texas, on October 4, 1862, and was then stationed there. Confederate forces captured the ship at Galveston when they retook the city on January 1, 1863. In the course of its U.S. Navy Civil War service, the Harriet Lane took five prizes. Converted into a blockade-runner and renamed the Lavinia, the ship was interned at Havana at the end of the war and recovered by the U.S. government. Sold to a Boston firm, it was converted to a merchant bark and renamed the Elliot Richie. The ship foundered off Pernambuco, Brazil, on May 13, 1864. Spencer C. Tucker See also Blockade-Runners; Farragut, David Glasgow; Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s Run Past; Fort Pickens, Florida; Fort Sumter, South Carolina; Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, Relief Efforts and Beginning of the Civil War; Galveston, Battle of; Galveston, Texas, Union Capture of; Gulf of Mexico; Hatteras Inlet, Union Assault on;

286 |â•‡ Hart, John Elliott Mississippi River; Pawnee, USS; Pensacola Navy Yard; Porter, David Dixon; Potomac Flotilla; Revenue Cutter Service, U.S.; Riverine Warfare; Vicksburg Campaign; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. II, Vol. 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1921. U.S. Navy Department, Naval History Division. Civil War Naval Chronology, 1861– 1865. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971.

Hart, John Elliott Birth Date: 1820 Death Date: June 11, 1863 U.S. Navy officer. John Elliott Hart was born in Schenectady, New York, in 1820. He received a midshipman’s warrant on February 23, 1841, then served in the Brazil Squadron in the sloops Marion and John Adams until 1843, and aboard the frigate Constitution in its circumnavigation of the globe in 1846. Entering the U.S. Navy Academy, Annapolis, in 1846, he graduated and was advanced to passed midshipman on August 10, 1847. Hart then served in the frigate St. Lawrence until 1850, in the side-wheeler gunboat Michigan on the Great Lakes during 1853–1854, and in the sloop Jamestown in the Africa Squadron, where he was promoted to master on September 14, 1855, and to lieutenant a day later. Following a leave of absence, Hart was assigned to the screw sloop Iroquois in the Mediterranean in 1859. During the first year and a half of the Civil War, Hart served in the sailing sloop Vincennes as executive officer and then in the sailing frigate Santee. Promoted to lieutenant commander on July 16, 1862, he was appointed commander in October of the large screw combatant Albatross in the West Gulf Blockading Squadron. During November 28–December 8, 1862, during an expedition in St. Andrew’s Bay, Florida, his men destroyed a major saltworks. The Albatross also took part in the attack on Port Hudson on March 14, 1863, during which one of its crewmen was killed, and against Grand Gulf, Mississippi, on March 19, when another member of the crew was killed. On May 4, 1863, in the course of reconnoitering Fort De Russy on the Red River, Hart’s ship engaged the Confederate steamers Grand Duke and Mary T, which were attempting to evacuate artillery and supplies. Although the Albatross fired 14 broadsides, it was badly damaged in the exchange of fire from the two

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ships as well as from Confederate cavalry ashore, being hulled 11 times and suffering two killed and four wounded before withdrawing. Hart subsequently claimed he could have captured both ships had his signals for assistance been heeded by two nearby Union warships. Apparently irrational from a fever, Hart committed suicide by shooting himself in his cabin in the Albatross near Port Hudson on June 11, 1863. Spencer C. Tucker See also Grand Gulf, Battle of; Mississippi River; Naval Academy, United States; Port Hudson, Louisiana, Action at; Red River; Red River Campaign; Riverine Warfare; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vols. 19 and 20. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1905.

Hartford, USS U.S. Navy steam sloop. Built in the Boston Navy Yard, the Hartford was laid down in January 1858, launched in November 1858, and commissioned on May 27, 1859; the sloop displaced 2,550 tons and measured 225 feet between perpendiculars, with a beam of 44 feet and draft of 17 feet, 2 inches. Its fine hull lines resembled contemporary clipper ships, and its horizontal direct-acting engine provided a maximum speed of 9.5 knots, with sail adding 4 knots under favorable circumstances. Its original armament consisted of 16 IX-inch Dahlgren smoothbores carried in broadside on a single deck. This battery underwent frequent modification, especially by the addition of rifled pieces and pivot guns. In 1862 its armament was 20 IX-inch Dahlgrens, two 4-inch (20-pounder) rifled Dahlgren boat howitzers, and two smoothbore 12-pounder Dahlgren boat howitzers. During the Civil War the Hartford saw considerable action, serving as David G. Farragut’s flagship at New Orleans, Vicksburg, Port Hudson, and in the Battle of Mobile Bay. In these actions, the sloop engaged a variety of Confederate warships, including the ironclads CSS Arkansas and Tennessee, often at point-blank range. To enhance its protection, the Hartford’s crew draped its sides with chain cables. In the decade after the war, the warship served mostly with the Asiatic Squadron. During the early 1880s the Hartford was modernized with compound engines, rapid-fire 5-inch guns, and an electric plant. Employed as a training ship and then as a station ship at Charleston, South Carolina, it was reclassified at the end of World War II as a relic. Despite its extraordinary historical importance, it was

288 |â•‡ Harwood, Andrew Allen

allowed to deteriorate until it finally sank at its berth in the Norfolk Navy Yard on November 20, 1956. Malcolm Muir Jr. See also Arkansas, CSS; Boston Navy Yard; Dahlgren Boat Howitzers; Dahlgren Guns; Farragut, David Glasgow; Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s Run Past; Gulf of Mexico; Ironclads, Confederate; Mississippi River; Mobile Bay, Battle of; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; Tennessee, CSS; Vicksburg Campaign; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Canney, Donald L. The Old Steam Navy. 2 vols. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1990, 1993. Jameson, Edwin M., and Sanford Sternlicht. The Black Devil of the Bayous: The Life and Times of the United States Steam Sloop Hartford, 1858–1957. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Gregg, 1970. Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989.

Harwood, Andrew Allen Birth Date: October 9, 1802 Death Date: August 29, 1884 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Settle, Pennsylvania, on October 9, 1802, Andrew Allen Harwood received a midshipman’s warrant on January 1, 1818. He was promoted to lieutenant on March 3, 1827; to commander on October 2, 1848; and to captain on September 14, 1855. In early 1861 Harwood had been in the navy for 43 years: 14 years in assignments afloat, 17 years in shore duties, and 11 years awaiting orders in a navy that had too many officers for available billets. Following the resignation of Captain George A. Magruder on April 22, 1861, Harwood, who was then an inspector of ordnance, took over Magruder’s post as acting chief of the Bureau of Ordnance. He was appointed its chief on August 6 and held that post until the appointment of Captain John A. Dahlgren on July 22, 1862. Harwood was advanced to commodore effective July 16, 1862, and then became commandant of the Washington Navy Yard and commander of the Potomac Flotilla, which was stationed at that yard. Harwood was listed as commodore on the retired list in early 1863 but continued to hold his assignments at the Washington Navy Yard until December 31, 1863. Following a leave of absence and a board assignment, Harwood became secretary of the Lighthouse Board from July 1864 to March 1869. Harwood was promoted to rear admiral on the retired list on February 16, 1869, although he apparently held some assignments until October 1871. Harwood died in Marion, Massachusetts, on August 29, 1884. Spencer C. Tucker

Hatteras Inlet, Union Assault onâ•‡ | 289

See also Dahlgren, John Adolph Bernard; Naval Ordnance; Potomac Flotilla; Washington Navy Yard

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Peck, Taylor. Round Shot to Rockets: A History of the Washington Navy Yard and U.S. Naval Gun Factory. Annapolis, MD: United States Naval Institute, 1949. Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001.

Hatteras Inlet, Union Assault on Start Date: August 28, 1861 End Date: August 29, 1861 The first significant U.S. Navy offensive operation of the war. Hatteras Inlet is one of several access points to Pamlico Sound, a major staging area for Confederate blockade-runners and privateers. In Union hands, Hatteras had the potential for becoming a staging area for operations against the North Carolina coast. Two poorly manned log and earthen forts on Hatteras Island controlled the inlet: Fort Clark, a small earthen works on the ocean side mounting 5 guns, and the more powerful Fort Hatteras, a half mile distant on the other side with 25 guns. Colonel William F. Martin commanded the two forts. Unfortunately for the Confederates, the forts were separated from the mainland by the very sound they were designed to protect. On August 26, 1861, Union flag officer Silas H. Stringham departed Hampton Roads with six warships: the screw frigates Minnesota (flagship) and Wabash, the side-wheeler frigate Susquehanna, the screw sloop Pawnee, the converted merchant steamer Monticello, and the ex–Revenue Service cutter Harriet Lane. The squadron also included the tug Fanny and the chartered steamer transports Adelaide and George Peabody, carrying some 900 army troops under Major General Benjamin F. Butler. The two transports towed schooners carrying surfboats, while the Monticello and Pawnee towed surfboats only. Stringham’s plan called for his ships to shell the forts from their water face while Butler’s troops assaulted them from the rear on the land face. The operation was conceived as a raid. The squadron anchored off Hatteras Inlet on the afternoon of August 27. At 6:45 a.m. the next day, Stringham ordered marines and troops ashore in surfboats at a point about two miles east of Fort Clark and beyond the range of its guns. Ships’ launches mounting Dahlgren boat howitzers stood ready to provide covering fire should it be required, while the Pawnee, Monticello, and Harriet Lane were available to provide heavier cannon fire.

290 |â•‡ Hatteras Inlet, Union Assault on

At 8:45 a.m. the larger Union ships began the bombardment of Fort Clark. The Wabash led, towing the newly arrived razee (cut down) sloop Cumberland, with the Minnesota following. Stringham ordered the bombardment ships to steam in a large oval. Fort Clark returned fire for a time. Heavy surf, meanwhile, meant that by 11:30 a.m. only 320 men had been put ashore. Despite this, as a consequence of the naval bombardment, the Confederates abandoned Fort Clark about noon. The Union land force then worked its way to it, and by 2:00 p.m. had taken possession of the fort. At 4:00 p.m., mistakenly believing that both Confederate forts had surrendered, Stringham ordered the Monticello into Hatteras Inlet. It had proceeded only a short distance up the channel when it came under fire from Fort Hatteras. In its exposed position, separated from the remainder of the squadron, the Monticello was hit five times by shot from the shore. It was able to withdraw without major damage, however. Stringham promptly ordered the remainder of his ships in to shell Fort Hatteras. Deteriorating weather conditions prevented the landing of additional Union troops, and the Union squadron then anchored for the night. Meanwhile, Flag Officer Samuel Barron, commander of the naval defenses of Virginia and North Carolina, had arrived at Fort Hatteras with 230 reinforcements in a steam tug towing a schooner, which had reached the fort from the south. This brought Confederate strength at Fort Hatteras to some 650 men. On Martin’s invitation, Barron assumed command of the fort. Barron wanted to attack and retake Fort Clark, but when additional men failed to arrive, he dropped that plan in favor of strengthening Fort Hatteras. At 5:30 a.m. the next day, August 29, Stringham ordered his large ships to recommence shelling Fort Hatteras. The action began at 8:00 a.m., the Susquehanna leading, followed by the Wabash and Minnesota. All three ships anchored and then opened fire. An hour later the Cumberland came in under sail, anchored, and joined in. Because the Union ships were firing at long range, many shells were falling short, and Stringham ordered a temporary halt in the firing to allow crews to switch to 15-second fuses and to fire only from the largest guns. This change had the desired effect. The Harriet Lane also joined the action with its longer-range rifled guns. Although the Confederate guns replied, their shot fell short. Barron then met with his officers to consider the situation. Their shorter-range guns could not reach the ships, ammunition was running short, and the fort would not be reinforced. A Union shell that penetrated the fort’s ventilator shaft next to the magazine while Barron was meeting with his officers may have hastened his decision; not long afterward, at 11:00 a.m., a white flag appeared over the fort. Union troops then marched to the fort and took possession. Some Union ships entered the inlet. Although the Harriet Lane grounded, it was able to get free. At 2:30 p.m. Barron and several Confederate Army officers came aboard the Minnesota and formally surrendered. The Union side secured between 600 and 700 Confederate prisoners. There were no Union casualties. Too late, Flag Officer French Forrest, the commandant of the Norfolk Navy Yard, ordered Commander Thomas T. Hunter to prepare an expedition to Hatteras.

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The Hatteras Inlet victory was the first real Union naval triumph of the war, indeed the first noteworthy Union victory of the war—land or sea. It did much to restore Northern morale, shaken by the earlier Union defeat on land at First Manassas (Bull Run) on July 21, 1861. It also proved the great value of steamships in engaging land forts. Securing the inlet allowed the Union to seal off Pamlico Sound to Confederate privateers and blockade-running. Under Stringham’s urging, the Union forces retained Hatteras. It became a base for the blockaders and a depot for coal and supplies. Spencer C. Tucker See also Albemarle Sound; Amphibious Warfare; Barron, Samuel; Blockade Board; Blockade of the Confederacy; Blockade-Runners; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Dahlgren Boat Howitzers; Forrest, French; Hampton Roads, Virginia; Harriet Lane, USS; Letters of Marque and Reprisal; Marine Corps, U.S.; Minnesota, USS; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Norfolk Navy Yard; Pawnee, USS; Port Royal Sound, Battle of; Privateers; Stringham, Silas Horton


Haynes’ Bluff, Mississippi, Union Demonstration at Start Date: April 30, 1863 End Date: May 1, 1863 By the end of April 1863, the bulk of Union rear admiral David D. Porter’s Mississippi Squadron, having successfully passed the Confederate batteries of Vicksburg, was concentrated in the river south of the city, where they had joined with two of Major General Ulysses S. Grant’s three corps that had marched past Vicksburg on the west side of the river. Grant now prepared to cross the Mississippi River at Grand Gulf to operate against Vicksburg from the south and east. To prevent the Confederate commander at Vicksburg, Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton, from sending forces south to reinforce against Grant, Porter and Grant mounted a diversion that would draw them in another direction. This involved sending ships, left behind above Vicksburg for this purpose, up the Yazoo River. Lieutenant Commander S. Livingston Breese had command of this force, consisting of Porter’s flagship, the tinclad Black Hawk; the ironclads Choctaw and Baron De Kalb; the gunboats Linden, Petrel, Romeo, and Signal; the timberclad

292 |â•‡ Head of Passes, Battle of

Tyler; and three tugs towing three mortar boats. Ten large transports carried troops commanded by Major General William T. Sherman. On April 29 the ships reached Chickasaw Bayou, site of the Union repulse the previous December. The Petrel then anchored in the mouth of the Old (False) River. On April 30 the ships approached Haynes’ Bluff and on May 1 commenced shelling Confederate shore positions. The exchange of fire was heavy, and the Choctaw was hit 57 times. There were no casualties aboard the ships. The Union troops landed and began their feint toward Haynes’ Bluff. The operation ended that evening, when the ships descended to the mouth of the Yazoo. Sherman’s troops moved south to join Grant. The diversion had some effect. Pemberton recalled men he had sent south to reinforce against Grant and sent them by forced march to Haynes’ Bluff. Meanwhile, the bulk of Porter’s ships bombarded the Confederate position at Grand Gulf. With that position proving too strong, Grant feared a repeat of the earlier failed assault at Chickasaw Bluffs; he decided to cross a bit to the south at Bruinsburg, Mississippi, which he did on April 30. Through May 1, 24,000 Union troops crossed the Mississippi there in the largest U.S. amphibious operation to that point in history. Confederate brigadier general John S. Brown, with 8,000 men, tried without success to destroy the lodgment. Grant recalled that he “felt a degree of relief scarcely ever equaled since.â•¯.â•¯.â•¯. All the campaigns, labors, hardships, and expenses from the month of December previous to this time that had been made and endured, were for the accomplishment of this one object.” Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Baron De Kalb, USS; Black Hawk, USS; Cairo-Class River Ironclads; Chickasaw Bluffs, Battle of; Grand Gulf, Mississippi, Union Shelling of; Ironclads, Union; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Mortar Boats; Porter, David Dixon; Riverine Warfare; Timberclads; Tinclads; Tyler, USS; Vicksburg, Mississippi, Mississippi Squadron Passage of; Vicksburg Campaign; Yazoo River

References Grant, Ulysses S. Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant. New York: Da Capo, 1982. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 24. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1911.

Head of Passes, Battle of Event Date: October 12, 1861 In early October 1861 a Union squadron of four ships under Captain John Pope took up position at the Head of the Passes on the Mississippi River. Pope had the

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screw sloop Richmond (flag), the side-wheeler gunboat Water Witch, and the sailing sloops Preble and Vincennes. The coaler and storeship Nightingale provided logistics support. Pope’s ships mounted a total of 40 guns. To oppose Pope, Commodore George N. Hollins, commander of Confederate ships on the lower Mississippi at New Orleans, had available only a ragtag force of the flagship McRae (a former Mexican steamer planned for conversion into a commerce raider and mounting eight guns) and five converted tugs, mounting in all seven additional guns. Because his own forces were outgunned more than 3 to 1, Hollins adopted harassing tactics. On October 9 the Confederate side-wheeler Ivy (two guns) lobbed some shot and shell toward the Union ships before retiring. Although neither side sustained any damage, Pope reported to his superior, Gulf Blockading Squadron commander Captain William McKean, that his squadron was “entirely at the mercy of the enemy” and could at any time be driven from the passes, which he held to be “untenable.” Early on October 12 Pope’s fears were realized when the Confederates struck with a powerful new addition, the ironclad steam ram Manassas (one 8-inch, 64-pounder). Only the day before, Hollins had ordered Lieutenant Alexander F. Warley to seize the Manassas, which had been undergoing conversion at Algiers, Louisiana, from a civilian ship into a privateer. Although the Confederate government later purchased the Manassas, Hollins was not prepared to wait for this. He ordered Warley to attack the Union squadron that very night. The night of October 11–12 was ideal for an attack, the moon having set. Following the Manassas downriver were two tugs pulling three fire rafts and the armed steamers Ivy, McRae, Tuscarora, Calhoun, and Jackson. Hollins planned for the Manassas to ram the nearest Union ship; with only one gun and but 12 shells for it, there was hardly any other option. After this, the squadron was to light and set adrift the fire rafts, while the gunboats took advantage of the confusion to close with and shell the Union ships. Early on October 12 the Confederates sighted the Union ships in the Passes. The crew of the Manassas then charged the ram’s furnaces with tar, tallow, and sulfur to build up maximum pressure as quickly as possible. Leaving the remainder of the squadron behind, Warley made at about 4:00 a.m. for the Richmond, which was faintly visible because of dimmed lights while it was taking on coal from the schooner Joseph H. Toone. Despite the earlier Confederate attack and Pope’s expressed concern about the vulnerability of his ships, he had not taken the obvious precaution of posting a picketboat upstream that might have sounded the alarm. At 3:45 a.m. on October 12, the deck watch on the Richmond spotted the Manassas bearing down on the ship. By the time the crew was alerted, the ram had struck the Richmond hard on its port side. The blow stove in three planks and opened a small hole below the waterline, although the ship’s pumps were able to offset the resultant flow of water.

294 |â•‡ Head of Passes, Battle of

As the ram then passed abreast of the Richmond, the Union warship let loose its entire port battery, but the shot and shell bounced off the Manassas’s iron plating. The collision, however, had accomplished what the Union broadside could not, for the ironclad’s iron prow had been wrenched off, its smokestack had collapsed over a ventilator, and one of its two engines was dislodged and not working. The Manassas drifted toward the shore, and then barely made it back upriver against the current. The Manassas did not return to service until the end of January 1862. During the attack, the Richmond raised a red danger signal, and the ships of the squadron soon got under way toward the sea. At this point, the Confederates loosed their fire rafts, but these grounded on a shoal. All the Union ships, along with a prize, the Frolic, which had been taken earlier, were able to escape, but while trying to gain the sea both the Richmond and the Vincennes grounded on the bar. Mistaking Pope’s signal to “get under way” for “abandon ship,” Commander Robert Handy of the Vincennes took off his crew and ordered a slow match lit to its magazine. Fortunately for the Union side the match failed, and after an appropriate wait, a chastened Handy and his crew returned to their ship. Although the Confederate gunboats shelled the grounded Union ships, they failed to seize the temporarily abandoned Vincennes and the larger, longer-range guns of the Union squadron soon drove them back upriver. Finally, both Union ships were set free, although not before the crew of the Richmond had thrown overboard 14 of its 18 guns and much shot. Meanwhile, the Confederates secured the Joseph H. Toone and its 15 tons of coal. The action, trumpeted throughout the South as “Pope’s Run,” was a considerable embarrassment to the U.S. Navy, and Pope and Handy were both removed from their commands. The battle hardly altered the naval balance, however. Although the Union troops did not return to the Head of the Passes for several months, they continued to control the river’s mouth, and the Union blockade steadily increased in effectiveness with the arrival of additional ships. Spencer C. Tucker See also Blockade of the Confederacy; Gulf Blockading Squadron; Gulf of Mexico; Hollins, George Nichols; Ironclads, Confederate; Manassas, CSS; McKean, William Wister; Mississippi River; Mississippi River Defense Fleet; New Orleans, Louisiana; Pope, John, Jr.; Richmond, USS; Riverine Warfare; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Porter, David Dixon. The Naval History of the Civil War. 1886; reprint, New York: Dover, 1998. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 16. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1903.

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Hitchcock, Robert Bradley Birth Date: September 25, 1804 Death Date: March 24, 1888 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Cheshire, Connecticut, on September 25, 1804, Robert Bradley Hitchcock received an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1824. Briefly a cadet there, he resigned to accept a midshipman’s warrant on January 1, 1825. Hitchcock was promoted to passed midshipman on June 4, 1831; to lieutenant on March 3, 1835; and to commander on September 14, 1855. At the beginning of 1861 Hitchcock had been in the navy for 36 years: some 17 years at sea, 13 years in shore assignments, and 5 years awaiting orders in a navy that had too many officers for available assignments. At the beginning of the Civil War, Hitchcock was assigned duty as an ordnance inspector. Next he commanded the side-wheeler frigate USS Susquehanna in the West Gulf Blockading Squadron and had charge of the blockade off Mobile Bay from June 1862 into the spring of 1863. Hitchcock was promoted to captain effective July 16, 1862, and then, because he was the most senior officer on the list, to commodore at the end of the year, with that commission backdated to July 16. Hitchcock was forced to undergo a court of inquiry in March 1863 after the Confederate commerce raider CSS Florida escaped from Mobile Bay past his blockaders on January 16. Although the affair did not go any further, Hitchcock had already been reassigned to ordnance duties at the West Point Foundry in Cold Spring, New York. He remained there for the rest of the war. Appointed commandant of the Norfolk Navy Yard in 1865, Hitchcock retired from the navy on September 25, 1866. Assigned special duty during 1869–1870, Hitchcock died in New York City on March 24, 1888. Spencer C. Tucker See also Blockade of the Confederacy; Blockade-Runners; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Florida, CSS; Gulf of Mexico; Maffitt, John Newland; Mobile Bay; Norfolk Navy Yard; West Gulf Blockading Squadron


296 |â•‡ H. L. Hunley, CSS

H. L. Hunley, CSS The Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley was the first submersible in the history of warfare to sink an enemy warship. Both sides experimented with submersibles during the Civil War, but the South built more of them. As early as March 1862, Robert R. Barrow, James R. McClintock, and Baxter Watson applied at New Orleans for a letter of marque for a submarine craft named the Pioneer. Only about 20 feet long and intended for a complement of two, it was propelled by means of a crankshaft turned by its crew. The Pioneer was scuttled to prevent its capture when Union forces took New Orleans. Horace L. Hunley, one of the sureties on the Pioneer, along with McClintock and Watson, then went to Mobile to continue experiments. In mid-February 1863 they tested another submarine along the same lines as the first. This one was designed for five men and to mount at its bow a spar torpedo. During the Civil War, sea mines were known as torpedoes, and a spar torpedo was simply a mine set on the end of a long pole. The new submarine sank in rough water off Fort Morgan in Mobile Bay, although no lives were lost. Undaunted, Hunley and his associates built a third submarine and tested it. In early August 1863, with Charleston under heavy Union attack, Confederate General Pierre G. T. Beauregard requested that the submarine be sent there. Large rewards had been offered for the destruction of Union ships off that port, and in mid-August the submarine arrived at Charleston on two covered railroad flatcars. Known as the H. L. Hunley, the submarine was built from an iron steam boiler with the addition of tapered bow and stern sections. It was some 40 feet in length, 3.5 feet in breadth at its widest point, and 4 feet in depth. It was shaped like a long thin cigar. Two hatches on the top were just large enough for a man to pass through. The submarine was designed for a crew of nine men: one to steer and eight, positioned along the length of the center section, to power the submarine by manually turning a crankshaft that moved the propeller, pushing the craft forward at about four knots. The H. L. Hunley was to run awash until it had closed on its target, when it would submerge with the aid of rudders for the final approach. The submarine was difficult to control, and it could not remain underwater long as the men needed fresh air, which was available only when the ship was awash. The submarine underwent a series of tests in Charleston Harbor under McClintock’s command. Beauregard and other Confederate leaders at Charleston grew impatient over McClintock’s caution. Finally Beauregard ordered that McClintock and his crew be replaced by Confederate Navy volunteers. Navy lieutenant John J. Payne took command but proved as impatient as McClintock was cautious. On August 29 the submarine sank at the dock. Payne had ordered it to get under way while he was climbing into the forward hatchway. Apparently he became fouled in a hawser and then put his foot on the lever that controlled the

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The Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley. Drawing by R. G. Skerrett, 1902. It was the first submarine in the history of warfare to sink a warship, the Union screw sloop Housatonic. (Naval History and Heritage Command)

fins. The H. L. Hunley moved from the dock and dived; because the hatches were open, the submarine rapidly filled with water. Five men drowned, but three others, including Payne, escaped. The H. L. Hunley was raised and refitted. Another crew volunteered, this time with Hunley in charge, but on October 15 the submarine sank again in Charleston Harbor, again as the result of human error. Hunley had evidently left the valve to the front ballast tank open. This time Hunley and seven others perished. The submarine was again recovered, and a third crew, commanded by Confederate Infantry lieutenant George F. Dixon, volunteered and began training. On the night of February 17, 1864, the H. L. Hunley at last set out. Its spar torpedo, fixed to the bow and possibly designed by Beauregard, held a 130-pound explosive charge and terminated in a barbed lance-head. When the submarine drove toward its victim, the spar’s barb would lodge in the timbers below the waterline. The submarine would then back off, exploding the torpedo by means of a long lanyard. The H. L. Hunley’s target was the 1,934-ton U.S. Navy screw sloop Housatonic. There had been reports of possible attacks by Confederate craft, and the sloop was prepared. Captain Charles W. Pickering had six lookouts posted, steam in the engine room was up, and crewmen stood ready to slip the ship’s cable and get under way quickly. At about 9:00 p.m. lookouts on the screw sloop spotted the H. L. Hunley’s hatches above water, along with its slight wake, when the submarine was only about 75 to 100 yards away, too late for anything save small-arms fire.

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About three minutes after the submarine was detected, just as the screw sloop was getting under way, the crew of the H. L. Hunley lodged the spar torpedo in the Housatonic’s side and exploded it. The Union ship quickly sank. The water was shallow, and only five Union sailors were lost; most of the crew simply climbed into the ship’s rigging, which remained above water, to await rescue. The Housatonic was the first ship sunk by a submarine in history. The unstable H. L. Hunley itself did not long survive. Its crew signaled by lantern that they were returning to land, but the submarine then vanished. Probably damaged in the blast, it went down with all hands. The loss of the H. L. Hunley remained one of the great mysteries of the Civil War, but in 1970 underwater explorer Edward Lee Spence discovered the wreck by accident. After a series of attempts sponsored by author Clive Cussler beginning in 1980, the H. L. Hunley was relocated in 1995. Spence donated any rights to the wreck to the State of South Carolina. Salvage crews raised the submarine in August 2000, and it was moved ashore to undergo the preservation process and become a museum vessel. Spencer C. Tucker See also Blockade of the Confederacy; Charleston, South Carolina; Housatonic, USS; Letters of Marque and Reprisal; Mobile Bay; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Spar Torpedo; Submarines; Torpedoes

References Hicks, Brian, and Schuyler Kropf. Raising the Hunley: The Remarkable History and Recovery of the Lost Confederate Submarine. New York: Ballantine Books, 2002. Holt, Edwin P. The Voyage of the Hunley. Short Hills, NJ: Burford Books, 2002. Ragan, Mark K. Union and Confederate Submarine Warfare in the Civil War. Mason City, IA: Savas, 1999.

Hoff, Henry Kuhn Birth Date: 1809 Death Date: December 25, 1878 U.S. Navy Officer. Born in Pennsylvania in 1809, Henry Kuhn Hoff received a midshipman’s warrant on October 28, 1823. He was promoted to passed midshipman on March 23, 1829; to lieutenant on March 3, 1831; and to commander on February 6, 1854. In early 1861 Hoff had been in the U.S. Navy for 37 years: 14 years at sea, 10 years in assignments ashore, and almost 13 years awaiting orders in a navy that had too many officers for available assignments. At the beginning of the Civil War, Hoff was commanding a receiving ship at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. Promoted to captain on June 30, 1861, he was in August assigned to command the screw sloop Lancaster in the Pacific Squadron. Hoff was promoted to commodore effective July 16, 1862. He returned from the Pacific that

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autumn and served on different boards until May 1864, when he became the ordnance officer at the Philadelphia Navy Yard until 1867. Promoted to rear admiral on April 13, 1867, Hoff took command of the North Atlantic Squadron until the spring of 1869, after which he served on various boards into 1870. Hoff died in Washington, D.C., on December 25, 1878. Spencer C. Tucker See also Philadelphia Navy Yard; Receiving Ship


Hoge, Francis Lyell Birth Date: January 5, 1841 Death Date: March 16, 1901 Confederate Navy officer. Francis Lyell Hoge was born on January 5, 1841, in Marshall County, Virginia, and joined the U.S. Navy as an acting midshipman on September 20, 1856. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, and was advanced to midshipman on June 15, 1860. Hoge resigned from the U.S. Navy on June 4, 1861. He entered the Confederate States Navy that same month and was assigned to the gunboat Patrick Henry. In February 1862 he was commissioned a lieutenant and fought in the Battle of Hampton Roads (March 8–9, 1862) and the Battle of Drewry’s Bluff (March 15, 1862). In August 1863 he was chosen by Colonel John Taylor Wood for an expedition on the Rappahannock River against Union gunboats. He led an attack on the U.S. Revenue Service cutter steamer Reliance and was wounded. In October 1863 he returned to duty as a member of the naval examining board. After only brief service there he was assigned to the ironclad Richmond. From there he was detailed to torpedo duty on the Chowan and Roanoke rivers in North Carolina. Hoge was ordered to Wilmington, North Carolina, on January 16, 1864, to begin preparing for a raid on Union warships in the Neuse River. Hoge played a leading role in the capture and scuttling of the U.S. Navy side-wheeler coastal combatant Underwriter at New Bern, North Carolina, on February 21, 1864. Afterward, Hoge was assigned to the Confederate ironclad Neuse as its executive officer, first under Lieutenant Benjamin Loyall and later under Captain Joseph Price. After the war Hoge moved to Wheeling, West Virginia, where he served as city engineer from 1881 to 1900. He died there on March 16, 1901. Andrew Duppstadt

300 |â•‡ Hollins, George Nichols See also Drewry’s Bluff, First Battle of; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Ironclads, Confederate; Loyall, Benjamin Pollard; Naval Academy, United States; Neuse, CSS; Price, Joseph; Richmond, CSS; Torpedoes; Underwriter, USS, Confederate Expedition against; Wood, John Taylor

References Conrad, James Lee. Rebel Reefers: The Organization and Midshipmen of the Confederate States Naval Academy. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2003. Evans, Clement A. Confederate Military History. Extended ed. Wilmington, NC: Broadfoot, 1987. Loyall, B. P. “Capture of the Underwriter, New Bern, 2 February 1864.” In Histories of Several Regiments and Battalions from North Carolina in the Great War, 1861–65, Vol. 5, edited by Walter Clark, 325–333. Raleigh, NC: E. M. Uzzell, Printer and Binder, 1901. Register of Officers of the Confederate States Navy, 1861–1865: As Compiled and Revised by the Office of Naval Records and Library, United States Navy Department, 1931, from All Available Data. With a new introduction by John M. Carroll. Mattituck, NY: J. M. Carroll, 1981. [Originally published by the Naval Record and Library, U.S. Navy Department, in 1898 and revised in 1931.]

Hollins, George Nichols Birth Date: September 20, 1799 Death Date: January 18, 1878 Confederate Navy officer. George N. Hollins was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of a prominent merchant, on September 20, 1799. Hollins secured a midshipman’s warrant in the U.S. Navy on February 1, 1814, and saw action in the War of 1812. He was on board the frigate President when it was captured by a British squadron in January 1815. Released at the end of the war, he took part in the Algerian War in the Mediterranean during 1815–1816. Hollins was promoted to lieutenant on January 13, 1825, and to commander on September 8, 1845. In 1854, while in command of the schooner Cyane, he shelled the port of San Juan del Norte, Nicaragua, in retaliation for attacks on American lives and property. Hollins was promoted to captain on September 14, 1855, and commanded the navy yard at Sackets Harbor, New York, for several years. When the Civil War began, Hollins was commanding officer of the side-wheeler frigate Susquehanna at Naples, Italy. Ordered to return his ship to the United States, he did so and then resigned his commission on June 6, 1861. The Navy Department refused to accept it and ordered his arrest. Hollins escaped to the South, where he accepted a commission as a commander in the Confederate Navy. On June 28 Hollins led a group of Confederates who seized the side-wheel steamer St. Nicholas. The Confederates had posed as passengers and boarded the ship at various stops on its regular run between Baltimore and Georgetown, D.C. The steamer then seized

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as prizes on June 29 in the Chesapeake Bay the Union schooners Margaret and Mary Pierce, and the brig Monticello. In July 1861 Hollins took command of the New Orleans station. In October he seized the Manassas, a privately owned merchant ship undergoing conversion to a privateer ironclad ram, and ordered it and the other ships in his squadron to attack the Union squadron under Captain John Pope at the Head of Passes in the lower Mississippi, driving the Union ships from that place on October 12 in what came to be known as “Pope’s Run.” That same month, Hollins took command of the small Confederate squadron of steamers on the upper Mississippi. He led his squadron in actions off Columbus, Kentucky; Island Number 10; and Fort Pillow. In April, Hollins telegraphed Secretary of the Navy Stephen R. Mallory requesting permission to bring his squadron to New Orleans for the defense of that place, but Mallory, who believed that the major threat lay from Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote’s northern squadron rather than from Flag Officer David G. Farragut’s at the river’s mouth, refused. Hollins won a victory over part of the Union squadron in the upper Mississippi in the Battle of Plum Point Bend on May 10, 1862, only to see his squadron destroyed in the Battle of Memphis on June 6. He then returned to New Orleans to participate in the defense of that city from the threat posed by Farragut’s West Gulf Blockading Squadron. His strong opinions about the defense of New Orleans, which he pressed on Mallory, were probably responsible for his recall to the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, where he spent the remainder of the war in service on various boards. After the end of the war Hollins returned to Baltimore, where he served as a crier in the Baltimore courts and died on January 18, 1878. Spencer C. Tucker See also Farragut, David Glasgow; Foote, Andrew Hull; Fort Pillow, Tennessee; Gulf Blockading Squadron; Gulf of Mexico; Head of Passes, Battle of; Ironclads, Confederate; Island Number 10, Battle of; Mallory, Stephen Russell; Manassas, CSS; Memphis, First Battle of; Mississippi River; Mississippi River Defense Fleet; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; Plum Point Bend, Battle of; Richmond, Virginia; Riverine Warfare; Sackets Harbor Naval Station; Strategy, Confederate Naval; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Luraghi, Raimondo. A History of the Confederate Navy. Translated by Paolo D. Coletta. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1996. Register of Officers of the Confederate States Navy, 1861–1865: As Compiled and Revised by the Office of Naval Records and Library, United States Navy Department, 1931, from All Available Data. With a new introduction by John M. Carroll. Mattituck, NY: J. M. Carroll, 1981. [Originally published by the Naval Record and Library, U.S. Navy Department, in 1898 and revised in 1931.] Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

302 |â•‡ Horwitz, Phineas Jonathan

Horwitz, Phineas Jonathan Birth Date: March 3, 1822 Death Date: September 18, 1904 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, on March 3, 1822, Phineas Jonathan Horwitz was briefly a cadet at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1840 before resigning to study medicine at the University of Maryland and at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. Horwitz received an appointment to the navy as an assistant surgeon on November 8, 1847, with the equivalent rank next after lieutenant. He was assigned to the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery in Washington in June 1859. Horwitz was promoted to surgeon, with rank equivalent to that of lieutenant, on April 19, 1861. He remained in his staff position throughout the Civil War, and was advanced to rank equivalent to lieutenant commander on March 13, 1863. Following the death of Surgeon William Whelan in June 1865, Horwitz was named the chief of the bureau effective July 1. As bureau chief, he held the relative rank of commodore. Horwitz gave up his post as bureau chief on June 30, 1869, and became surgeon at the Philadelphia Naval Hospital. On March 3, 1871, Horowitz was made a medical inspector with the relative rank of commander. He was promoted to medical director on June 30, 1873, with the relative rank of captain, and was assigned to the Naval Asylum at Philadelphia during 1877–1883. He retired on March 3, 1884. Horwitz died at Bar Harbor, Maine, on September 18, 1904. Spencer C. Tucker See also Medicine, Naval; Philadelphia Naval Asylum


Hospital Ships See Medicine, Naval

Housatonic, USS Best known for the unique manner in which it was lost, the U.S. Navy steam sloop Housatonic was one of the numerous vessels built during the war to enforce the

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The U.S. Navy steam sloop Housatonic, which served in the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron and was sunk off Charleston by the Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley on February 17, 1864. This was the first time in history that a ship had been sunk by a submarine. (Naval History and Heritage Command)

Union blockade of Southern ports. The Housatonic was one of the powerful fourship Ossipee class of screw sloops. Laid down at the Boston Navy Yard in 1861, it was launched in November 1861 and commissioned on August 29, 1862. Displacing 1,934 tons, the Housatonic was 205 feet in length between perpendiculars and 38 feet in breadth, with a draft of 16 feet, 7 inches. Capable of 12 knots under steam, it mounted one 6.4-inch (100-pounder) and three 4.2-inch (30-pounder) Parrott rifled guns, a pivot-mounted XI-inch Dahlgren gun, and two 32-pounder smoothbores. It also had two 24-pounder and one 12-pounder boat howitzers. The ship had a crew complement of 160 men. Following commissioning, the Housatonic departed Boston in September 1862 for duty with the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron at Charleston under Rear Admiral Samuel F. Du Pont. In January 1863 its boat crews boarded and helped refloat the blockade-runner Princess Royal, which had gone aground carrying engines for Confederate ironclad vessels. Later that month, the Housatonic helped repulse a sortie by two Confederate ironclad rams, the Chicora and Palmetto State, but not before the blockader Mercedita was captured (the Confederates then immediately released it, when its crew accepted parole) and three other Union vessels were damaged. Routine service for the Housatonic followed, interrupted only by the capture of the blockade-runners Neptune in April 1863 and Secesh in May 1863. Along with the other wooden ships blockading Charleston, the Housatonic remained in reserve during Du Pont’s unsuccessful ironclad assault on the port’s defenses in early April. In mid-July the Housatonic’s howitzers fired in support of an assault on Battery Wagner as part of the Union effort against Charleston. The failure of this assault was followed by another seven months of blockade duty, during which

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time the Housatonic contributed boat crews for coastal bombardment and landing raiding parties. On the evening of February 17, 1864, the Housatonic was on its regular station about five and a half miles outside Charleston Harbor. Because of the threat of attack by Confederate spar-torpedo boats and submarines, Captain Charles W. Pickering had his ship prepared. He had six lookouts posted, and steam in the engine room was up. Crewmen stood ready to slip the ship’s cable at a moment’s notice and get under way. The night was clear and the sea calm. At about 9:00 p.m. the officer of the deck, Acting Master J. N. Crosby, spotted the two hatches of the approaching Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley, which was running awash toward its target. Crosby initiated evasive maneuvers and called the crew to quarters, but the submarine was then too close for anything except small-arms fire. Within two minutes, just as the Union ship was getting under way, the commander of the H. L. Hunley, Lieutenant George F. Dixon, succeeded in ramming the barbed tip of the submarine’s 130-pound spar torpedo (a mine on the end of a long pole) into the starboard side of the ship’s hull, just forward of the mizzenmast. The detonator was attached to a lanyard on the submarine, and when the H. L. Hunley backed away, the mine exploded. The Housatonic quickly settled by its stern. Fortunately for its crew, the water was only 28 feet deep, and many of the men simply scrambled into the ship’s rigging to await rescue. Because most of the crew had rushed topside upon hearing Crosby’s alarm, only two officers and three sailors perished. The Housatonic thus became the first warship ever to be sunk by a submarine. In the morning, the survivors were rescued. After the explosion of the spar torpedo, the H. L. Hunley had signaled that it was returning to shore, but the submarine then vanished. Probably it had been damaged in the explosion. In any case, it sank with all hands. Although a boost to Confederate morale, the sinking of the Housatonic hardly disturbed the naval balance, let alone the Union blockade of Charleston. Stephen Svonavec and Spencer C. Tucker See also Blockade of the Confederacy; Blockade-Runners; Boston Navy Yard; Charleston, South Carolina; Charleston, South Carolina, CSA Navy Attack on U.S. Navy Blockaders; Charleston, South Carolina, Du Pont’s Attack on; Davids, CSS; Du Pont, Samuel Francis; H. L. Hunley, CSS; Ironclads, Confederate; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Spar Torpedo; Submarines; Torpedoes

References Anderson, Bern. By Sea and by River: The Naval History of the Civil War. New York: Knopf, 1962. Fowler, William M., Jr. Under Two Flags: The American Navy in the Civil War. New York: Norton, 1990. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

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Hulk An unrigged hull usually stripped of gear, rigging, and engines, and condemned as unseaworthy. Hulks were frequently utilized as floating depots in a harbor or roadstead. During the 1700s and 1800s, hulks were often employed as guardships to protect a naval installation or anchorage. In wartime they might be sunk as blockships to protect an anchorage and impede the enemy. On occasion they were equipped with guns and used as floating batteries. Most commonly they were used for storage of food and guns, and sometimes served as a barracks or prison. Hulks were commonly employed as prisons in England during the American War of Independence and during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. The hulk was also the final point of departure for new naval recruits. Examples of hulks during the Civil War were the receiving ships North Carolina (launched in 1820 as a 74-gun ship of the line, it served as a receiving ship at New York during 1839–1866) and Pennsylvania (launched in 1837 as a 120-gun ship of the line, it was a receiving ship at the Norfolk [Gosport] Navy Yard from 1842 until April 1861, when it was burned to prevent capture). The U.S. Navy also employed hulks in attempts to block shipping channels along the South Atlantic coast, as at the end of 1861 when Flag Officer Samuel F. Du Pont, commanding the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, attempted to obstruct the main channel at Charleston, South Carolina. On December 20 the blockaders sunk there the “stone fleet,” a number of hulks filled with rocks, but powerful tides and storms soon washed this obstruction away. Walter W. Jaffee and Spencer C. Tucker See also Brooklyn Navy Yard; Charleston, South Carolina; Du Pont, Samuel Francis; Floating Battery; Norfolk Navy Yard; Receiving Ship; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Stone Fleets

References Kerchove, René de. International Maritime Dictionary. Princeton, NJ: D. Van Nostrand, 1961. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Hull, Joseph Bartine Birth Date: April 26, 1802 Death Date: January 17, 1890 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Westchester, New York, on April 26, 1802, John Bartine Hull was the nephew of Commodore Isaac Hull, a War of 1812 naval hero, and a distant cousin of Civil War naval hero Rear Admiral Andrew H. Foote. He received

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a midshipman’s warrant on November 9, 1813, and was promoted to lieutenant on January 13, 1825, and to commander on September 8, 1841. During the Mexican-American War (1846–1848), Hull commanded the sloop Warren and took part in operations against Mazaltán. There on September 7, 1846, he oversaw the cutting out of the Mexican brig Malek Adbel. He then took part in operations at Monterey, California. Hull was promoted to captain on May 24, 1855. At the beginning of 1861, Hull had been in the navy for 47 years: 22 years in sea service, 10 years in assignments ashore, and 15 years awaiting orders in a navy that had too many officers for available assignments. In May 1861 Hull took command of the frigate Savannah at New York and the next month was assigned to the Atlantic Blockading Squadron at Hampton Roads. He was then stationed off Newport News, Virginia, until mid-September. When Captain Louis M. Goldsborough was assigned as commander of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron a week later, Hull was transferred to blockade duty off Savannah because he was senior to Goldsborough, and it was not thought proper to have Hull serving under him. Hull was placed on the retired list on December 21, 1861, and was commissioned a commodore on the retired list on July 16, 1862. He remained on duty, however; during 1862–1864 he had charge of gunboat construction at St. Louis, Missouri, and during 1864–1865 he was the commandant of the Philadelphia Navy Yard. On awaiting orders status in January 1866, Hull served on board duty in Philadelphia into 1867 and as a lighthouse inspector in Portland, Maine, during 1869–1870. Hull died in Philadelphia on January 17, 1890. Spencer C. Tucker See also Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Foote, Andrew Hull; Goldsborough, Louis Malesherbes; Hampton Roads, Virginia; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Philadelphia Navy Yard; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron


Hunt, Timothy Atwater Birth Date: 1805 Death Date: January 21, 1884 U.S. Navy officer. Born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1805, Timothy A. Hunt received a midshipman’s warrant on March 1, 1825. He was promoted to passed

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midshipman on June 4, 1831; to lieutenant on December 17, 1836; and to commander on September 14, 1855. At the beginning of 1861 Hunt had been in the navy for 35 years: 16 years at sea, 19 years in shore assignments, and 9 years awaiting orders in a navy that had too many officers for available assignments. At the beginning of the Civil War, Hunt commanded the steam sloop Narragansett in the Pacific Squadron. In 1862 he was assigned as the ordnance officer at the Boston Navy Yard, and he continued in that position throughout the war. Promoted to captain effective July 16, 1862, he was promoted to commodore on January 2, 1863. Hunt remained at the Boston Navy Yard until he retired from the navy on July 23, 1867. Assigned to special duty at New London, Connecticut, in 1869, Hunt died in New Haven on January 21, 1884. Spencer C. Tucker See also Boston Navy Yard



I Ingraham, Duncan Nathaniel Birth Date: December 6, 1802 Death Date: October 16, 1891 Confederate Navy officer. Duncan Nathaniel Ingraham was born in Charleston, South Carolina, on December 6, 1802. He received a midshipman’s warrant on June 18, 1812; saw service during the War of 1812; and was advanced to lieutenant on January 13, 1825. Ingraham was promoted to commander on September 8, 1841. He saw action in the Mexican-American War (1846–1848), where he commanded the brig Somers and took part in the capture of Tampico. In 1853 Ingraham was commanding the sloop St. Louis in the Mediterranean Squadron when he was informed that a Hungarian named Martin Koszata, who had lived in New York City for two years and had declared his intention to become an American citizen, had been arrested at Smyrna by Austrian authorities and was being held on the Austrian ship Hussar. On July 2, 1853, Ingraham demanded that Koszata be released within eight hours or he would attack the Hussar, even though the Austrian warship was larger and more heavily gunned than his own ship. The Austrian captain agreed to release Koszata to the French consul, and the Hungarian was subsequently freed. For this action, the U.S. Congress voted Ingraham a gold medal. Ingraham was promoted to captain on September 14, 1855. In 1856 Ingraham was appointed chief of the Bureau of Ordnance and Hydrography. In this post he frequently clashed with Commander John A. Dahlgren, who was seeking to develop a new ordnance system for the navy at the Washington Navy Yard. In 1860 Ingraham took command of the screw sloop Richmond in the Mediterranean Squadron. Upon learning that South Carolina had seceded from the Union, Ingraham resigned his commission on February 4, 1861. He joined the Confederate Navy as a captain on March 26, 1861. After service on a board appointed by Secretary of the Navy Stephen R. Mallory to develop naval policy, he commanded the navy yard at Pensacola, Florida. On November 16, 1861, he was assigned command of the naval station at Charleston, South Carolina. There he oversaw construction of the ironclad Confederate ram Palmetto State. On January 31, 1863, Ingraham commanded the Palmetto State when it and the Confederate ironclad Chicora attacked the wooden U.S. Navy blockaders off Charleston. Although Ingraham and Confederate commander at Charleston General P. G. T. Beauregard announced that the

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Union blockade had been broken and was no longer valid, U.S. officials disagreed, claiming correctly that the attackers had been driven off. Relieved of sea duty in March 1863 by reason of his age, Ingraham continued in command of Confederate Navy shore installations at Charleston until the city fell to Union forces in 1865. After the war Ingraham resided in Charleston. He died there on October 16, 1891. Spencer C. Tucker See also Blockade of the Confederacy; Charleston, South Carolina; Charleston, South Carolina, CSA Navy Attack on U.S. Navy Blockaders; Dahlgren, John Adolph Bernard; Fort Pickens, Florida; Ironclads, Confederate; Mallory, Stephen Russell; Pensacola Navy Yard; Richmond, CSS; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Washington Navy Yard

References Browning, Robert M., Jr. Success Is All That Was Expected: The South Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War. Dulles, VA: Brassey’s, 2002. Register of Officers of the Confederate States Navy, 1861–1865: As Compiled and Revised by the Office of Naval Records and Library, United States Navy Department, 1931, from All Available Data. With a new introduction by John M. Carroll. Mattituck, NY: J. M. Carroll, 1981. [Originally published by the Naval Record and Library, U.S. Navy Department, in 1898 and revised in 1931.] Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 13. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1901.

Iron and Steel Manufacture, Impact on Ship Construction Improved iron manufacturing in the early 19th century transformed ship power sources and armaments without radically changing ship design or construction methods. Processes to improve cast-iron production, such as James Neilson’s hotblast furnace and Henry Bessemer’s steel converter, were rare in America prior to 1860. But by 1810 Americans were using puddling and rolling processes developed in the 1780s by Henry Cort for working cast iron. Puddling was the process of heating iron in an open-hearth furnace for easy shaping. Rolling took puddled iron and flattened it into plates and cylinders. Prior to Cort’s innovations, hand-finished iron was inconsistent in quality and difficult to use when making intricate parts. Plating and machinery were thus bulky, susceptible to rust, and prone to cracking. This made early steam engines too heavy and vibratory for ship use, while plating and parts were vulnerable to seawater and stress. American shippers believed that sails were more reliable than steam engines, and wood seemed like a sturdier and more seaworthy building

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material. Improved iron processing provided more consistent plating and machinery, resulting in lighter and stronger steam engines, parts, and plating that were useful for ships. Robert Fulton built the first commercially successful steamship in 1807, while John Elgar built the first American iron-hulled vessel in 1825. Yet these advances were applied slowly by the shipbuilding industry. Shipbuilders fit iron plating and steam engines into their wooden designs and construction methods. Wooden sailing ships were built with steam engines. Iron plates were laid over wood planks or used like wood planks on beams to make iron hulls, as in the first ironclad, the French Gloire of 1859. Some iron-hulled ships used wood beams, and others used iron beams. Steam and iron ships continued to have wooden decks and were sail rigged with masts. The U.S. Navy, like private shipbuilders, was slow to adopt iron. The frigate Mississippi, commissioned in 1841, was the navy’s first side-wheel steamer, while the sloop Princeton, commissioned two years later, was the first warship in any nation with a screw propeller. Yet by 1860 only 36 of the navy’s 77 ships were steam powered, and all but one was made of wood. The side-wheel steamer gunboat Michigan, which entered service in 1844, was the navy’s only iron-hulled warship. Wood remained the primary shipbuilding material in the United States until after the Civil War. Nevertheless, the Civil War significantly advanced the use of iron in American shipbuilding. The use of explosive shells led to iron armament, while blockades necessitated speedier and more reliable steam-powered ships, both to enforce and run the blockades. The Union and the Confederacy also learned from British and French iron-plated wooden batteries in the Crimean War (1853–1856). Both sides invested in ironclads, steam engines, and armor. They covered wooden ships in iron plates, resulting in such ships as CSS Virginia (former USS Merrimack); USS Monitor; and USS New Ironsides, the first oceangoing American ironclad. Ironclad effectiveness doomed the use of wood in the construction of warships, and iron dominated ship design after 1862. By the war’s end, the Union was building all iron ships, such as the twin-turreted monitor Onandoga, and steam was the main power source for new ships. Wartime developments did not immediately impact American shipbuilding because of government budget cuts and postwar economic decline. When the navy and the economy expanded in the 1880s, however, ships were made of iron and steel. Americans then began experimenting with new ship designs and new shipbuilding processes. Robert Francis Smith See also Cairo-Class River Ironclads; Eads, James Buchanan; Ericsson, John; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Ironclad Board, U.S. Navy; Ironclads, Confederate; Ironclads, Union; Mississippi, USS; Monitor, USS; New Ironsides, USS; Strategy, Confederate Naval; Strategy, Union Naval; Virginia, CSS

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References Canney, Donald L. The Old Steam Navy. 2 vols. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1990, 1993. Gordon, Robert B. American Iron, 1607–1900. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. Hackemer, Kurt. The U.S. Navy and the Origins of the Military-Industrial Complex, 1847–1883. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2001. Thiesen, William. Industrializing American Shipbuilding: The Transformation of Ship Design and Construction, 1820–1920. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2006.

Ironclad Board, U.S. Navy Officials in Washington were well aware that the Confederates had raised the U.S. Navy screw frigate Merrimack, which had been scuttled at the Norfolk (Gosport) Navy Yard, and were there rebuilding it as an ironclad. In consequence, U.S. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles sought to secure congressional approval for the construction of ironclads for the U.S. Navy. Welles enlisted the support of his young friend Connecticut industrialist Cornelius Bushnell, who then actively lobbied congressional leaders. Bushnell concentrated on Senator James W. Grimes (Republican of Iowa), who chaired the Committee of Naval Affairs. Grimes and others were won over, not only with the threat from the Confederacy but also with the news of ironclad construction in Britain and France. Grimes introduced a bill on July 19, 1861, calling for an appropriation of $1.5 million “to provide for the construction of one or more armored ships.” After debate and efforts by some to divert funds to complete the ill-fated Stevens Battery, Congress responded on August 3, 1861, with authorization for the secretary to appoint a board of “three skillful officers to investigate the plans and specifications that may be submitted for the construction or completing of iron or steel-clad steamships or steam batteries.” Toward that end it appropriated $1.5 million. On August 6 Welles appointed to the board Commodore Joseph B. Smith, the board’s chairman and head of the Bureau of Yards at Docks; Captain Hiram Paulding; and Commander Charles H. Davis. On August 7 Welles published an advertisement in a number of Northern newspapers soliciting designs for the construction of “Iron-Clad Steam Vessels .â•¯.â•¯. for sea or river service.” Interested parties were instructed to provide plans and a construction timetable, as well as a guarantee for “proper execution of the contract.” Seventeen designs were submitted to the board, which met for the first time on September 5. Smith requested the assistance of Naval Constructor Samuel R. Pook, but neither he nor any other constructor was then available, and so the members

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were forced to rely on their own expertise. The board also had to decide what types of ironclad ships it wanted. Two schools of thought predominated. The first, which held sway in the British and French navies, favored ironclad seagoing cruisers. The board failed to see the utility in such an approach and instead decided in favor of the second school, which favored ironclads in a coastal- and harbor-defense role. It concluded, “For river and harbor service we consider iron-clad vessels of light draught, or floating batteries thus shielded, as very important; and we feel at this moment the necessity of them on some of our rivers and inlets to enforce obedience to the laws.” The board did recognize the limitation of such ironclads in operating against fortified shore installations. On September 16 the board issued its “Report on Iron Clad Vessels.” It held that the current situation required “vessels invulnerable to shot, of light draught of water, to penetrate our shoal harbors, river and bayous” and recommended “construction of this class of vessels before going into a more perfect system of large ironclad seagoing vessels of war.” Although it received proposals for ironclads from some British yards, the board chose to rely on U.S. firms alone. The board narrowed the 17 proposals submitted down to 5 but rejected 2 as too costly. It recommended awarding three contracts: the first to C. S. Bushnell and Company of New Haven, the second to Merrick and Sons of Philadelphia, and the third to John Ericsson of New York. Their completed ships were, respectively, USS Galena, New Ironsides, and Monitor. Bushnell’s design was for an ironclad armored on the rail-and-plate principle. The resulting Galena proved to be a failure, being repeatedly holed during the First Battle of Drewry’s Bluff in Virginia (March 15, 1862). Its iron subsequently removed, the ship provided useful service. The board considered the proposal by Merrick and Sons to be “the most practical one for heavy armor.” Resembling the French Gloire and British Warrior ironclads and conventional sailing warships in design, with an iron belt, the New Ironsides was the most successful Civil War ironclad. It fired more shots and participated in more engagements than any other ironclad on either side in the war. Ericsson’s design was by far the most controversial submission. Ericsson had in fact not originally submitted a proposal. Angered by his experience in dealing with the government in the construction of the steam sloop Princeton, for which he had not been paid, Ericsson vowed that he would have nothing more to do with the government, or even set foot in Washington. Having received one of the ironclad contracts, for the future Galena, and questioned about the buoyancy of his proposed ship, Bushnell went to Ericsson, who concluded that the ship would indeed be stable. Ericsson then showed Bushnell his own design for an ironclad warship with low freeboard and a revolving turret. Bushnell immediately recognized the superiority of Ericsson’s work over his own and convinced him to change his mind and submit a proposal.

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Securing the support of the Ironclad Board was not easy. Davis opposed Ericsson’s highly unorthodox design and changed his mind only after the engineer traveled to Washington in mid-September and made a personal presentation. Welles then concurred with the board’s decision and gave Ericsson a verbal contract that same day. In truth, the department accepted the design only because of the perceived threat from the Virginia and because Ericsson promised to complete the work quickly. The contract was most unusual and reflected doubts about the ship’s viability. Ericsson and his partners had to assume all the risk. If the ship failed in any way— with the navy to determine what constituted failure—then all sums advanced for the construction were to be refunded to the government. Spencer C. Tucker See also Blockade Board; Davis, Charles Henry; Drewry’s Bluff, First Battle of; Ericsson, John; Floating Battery; Galena, USS; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Iron and Steel Manufacture, Impact on Ship Construction; Ironclads, Confederate; Ironclads, Union; Monitor, USS; New Ironsides, USS; Paulding, Hiram; Smith, Joseph; Stevens Battery; Strategy, Union Naval; Virginia, CSS; Welles, Gideon

References Hackemer, Kurt. The U.S. Navy and the Origins of the Military-Industrial Complex, 1847–1883. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2001. Mindell, David A. War, Technology, and Experience aboard the USS Monitor. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Ironclads, Confederate The Confederacy, short of warships and lacking the potential to build any significant numbers of them, hoped to offset the Union numerical advantage at sea through a few technologically advanced ships. Confederate secretary of the navy Stephen R. Mallory believed that even a few ironclads could prevent a Union blockade and indeed allow the South to carry the war to the North. On May 10, 1861, the Confederate Congress appropriated $2 million to purchase or construct one or two ironclads in Europe. Mallory also decided to try to build some ironclads at home. The first of the latter was the Virginia. It incorporated the hull, engines, and boilers of the scuttled U.S. steam frigate Merrimack at the Norfolk (Gosport) Navy Yard. The Virginia’s most distinctive feature was its central casemate sloping upward and inward 36 degrees on each side and extending into the water. The 24-inch-thick casemate received two layers of 2-inch iron plate. Unique in Confederate ironclads, both ends of the casemate were rounded, and the ship had a submerged bow and stern. The Virginia was the first modern

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warship to completely do away with rigging. A 3-foot-long, 1,500-pound iron ram was placed at the bow underwater. Problems included inadequate engines, sluggish steering, and the fact that the ship rode too high in the water so that the casemate barely extended into the water. When completed, the Virginia was 263 feet long between perpendiculars and mounted 10 guns, 6 of which were Brooke rifles. The South experienced serious problems in securing both the iron and power plants for its ironclads. In 1861 only one Southern firm, the Tredegar Iron Works (J. R. Anderson and Company) in Richmond, Virginia, could roll iron plate, cast heavy guns, and manufacture complete propulsion systems. In 1863 the navy added the Selma Foundry Works in Alabama. Nonetheless, iron production was so limited that the navy was forced to rely on iron from militarily nonessential railroad lines. Even this was not enough, and at least 10 ironclads had to be broken up for lack of iron plate. For the most part, Confederate ironclads were also underpowered, and their steam engines frequently broke down. Most Confederate ironclads were of the casemated type along the lines of the Virginia. While work on the Virginia was still in progress, Mallory let contracts for five ironclads to be built from scratch: the Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Georgia. With the exception of the Georgia, a steam-powered, floating battery to help protect Savannah, these were to be the major instruments of Mallory’s offensive policy of powerful seagoing ships to engage and defeat Union blockaders. All were laid down in October 1861. Two of the new ironclads were built at Memphis, the Arkansas class of the Arkansas and Tennessee. These two casemated ironclads had ram bows and sloping sides. Hastily built with poor engines, they were 165 feet between perpendiculars, and each mounted eight guns. The Arkansas suffered an engine breakdown and was scuttled in August 1862. The Tennessee was burned on the stocks at Memphis in June 1862 to prevent its capture. The Mississippi and Louisiana were larger, at 260 feet and 264 feet respectively. Both were constructed at Jefferson City, Louisiana. The Mississippi was launched in April 1862. Powered by three steam engines for triple screws and designed for 18 guns, it had not yet received its armament when it was burned following the Union capture of New Orleans the same month. The Louisiana, launched in February 1862, had four steam engines to power two paddle wheels mounted in tandem in a central well. Designed for 22 guns, the ship had insufficient power to move against the Mississippi River’s current, and it was towed to Fort St. Philip below New Orleans while still incomplete to become a floating battery. It was burned to prevent capture following passage of the Union fleet upriver. The Georgia, 250–260 feet in length, was launched in October 1862. Its battery is variously reported at 5 to 10 guns, but its engines were so inefficient that it could hardly get about, and it became simply a floating battery. Anchored off Fort


Jackson in the Savannah River northeast of the city, it became the principal barrier to a Union approach to Savannah and was scuttled in the river at the end of the war. By any measure, Mallory’s strategy of offensive operations by heavy ironclads was a failure. Excluding the Georgia, only three heavy ironclads saw combat, and of these only the Virginia and Arkansas were operational under their own power. Successful Union operations against a number of Confederate coastal ports in late 1861 and early 1862 led Mallory to abandon his offensive naval strategy of using large seagoing ironclads to break the blockade in favor of using smaller, shallow-draft ironclads to defend Confederate harbors and rivers. This plan found expression in the six-ship Richmond class of the Chicora, North Carolina, Palmetto State, Raleigh, Richmond, and Savannah. Laid down in early 1862, these ships resembled the Virginia in having a conventional hull and casemate of similar inclination and thickness but differed in having an intended armament of only four guns. Commissioning dates ranged from July 1862 to April 1864. The ships were 172 feet, 6 inches, in overall length. Propelled by a single screw, they were underpowered. They had 4-inch iron backed by 22 inches of wood. Armament varied from 4 to 10 guns. Most of the Richmond-class ships were burned or sunk to prevent their capture. Following ironclads were for the most part stretched versions that could carry more guns. These included the two-ship Charleston class of the Charleston and Virginia II. Intended for the defense of Charleston Harbor, the Charleston was commissioned in September 1863 and was 189 feet in overall length. It mounted six guns. The Charleston was burned in February 1865 to prevent capture. The Virginia II was completed in June 1864 and mounted four guns. It participated in the defense of Richmond on the James River and was blown up in April 1865 with the fall of the Confederate capital. The two ships of the Columbia class, the Columbia and the Texas, were 213 feet and 217 feet in overall length respectively and mounted six guns each. Commissioned in 1864, the Columbia was lost in January 1865 when it ran into a sunken wreck at Charleston. The Texas never saw active service and was seized by Union forces at Richmond in April 1865. The Tennessee was a modified Columbia-class ship. One of the most celebrated ships of the war, it was commissioned in February 1864. It was 209 feet overall; had two screws and side wheels, and a 5-inch casemate armor; and mounted six rifled guns. The Confederate flagship in the Battle of Mobile Bay in August 1864, it was disabled and captured. Other later Confederate ironclads included the Nashville, a side-wheeler that took advantage of available riverboat machinery. Never commissioned, it was surrendered in May 1865. There were also twin-screw, shallow-draft ironclads patterned after the Richmond class. These included the Milledgeville class of four ships and the Wilmington, but only the Milledgeville was ever launched, and none of these ironclads were ever commissioned.

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Mallory also ordered a simplified standardized design for ironclads that could be built inland. Designed to operate in very shallow water, all except one paddle wheeler were to be propelled by twin screws. Several were laid down in Tidewater Virginia but not completed by the time of the Confederate evacuation of that area in the spring of 1862. The two-ship Huntsville class of the Huntsville and Tuscaloosa were shallowdraft ironclads. They had an overall length of 152 feet and 4-inch armor, and each mounted four guns. Commissioned in 1863, their inadequate power plants forced their employment as floating batteries. Both were sunk as blockships in the Mobile River in April 1865. Finally, of shallow-draft Confederate ironclads there was the Albemarle class of the Albemarle, Neuse, and another unnamed ship never commissioned. Both the Albemarle and Neuse entered service in April 1864. They were 152-foot-long twinscrew vessels that mounted two rifled guns. One of the most famous Confederate ironclads, the Albemarle attacked and routed Union blockaders below Plymouth, North Carolina, in May 1864 before being sunk by a Union spar-torpedo boat that October. The Neuse was run aground off Kinston in May 1864, where it remained until sunk to prevent capture in March 1865. There was also a lengthened four-gun version of the Albemarle class, CSS Fredericksburg, commissioned in March 1864 as part of the James River flotilla. Some 188 feet in overall length, it mounted four guns. The Fredericksburg was blown up on April 4, 1865, with the Union capture of Richmond. Only one ship, the Missouri, was completed of a center-wheel class of ironclads. Built at Shreveport, Louisiana, and completed in September 1863, it was 183 feet in overall length with 4.5-inch rail armor protection and was armed with four guns. It served in the Red River, but low water prevented it leaving Shreveport, where it was surrendered in June 1865. In 1865 the Confederacy began construction of its sole turreted, monitor-type ironclad. Under construction at Columbus, Georgia, it mounted two guns in a single turret, but did not see service. Construction was halted by the end of the war. Mallory had much less success in his efforts to purchase ironclads overseas. Unsuccessful in securing them in France, Lieutenant James H. North contracted for the construction in Glasgow, Scotland, of a large, seagoing ironclad ram. Identified in the yard by its hull number of No. 61 and known locally as “the Scottish Sea Monster,” it was 270 feet in length and was designed for 4.5-inch armor and a standard broadsides battery of 20 guns. Its deep draft would have prevented it from operating effectively off the Southern coasts, and it also required a 530-man crew. In any case, the British government intervened, and on completion the ship was sold to the Danish government as the Danmark. James D. Bulloch, Mallory’s second agent in Europe, had success in arranging in England for construction of Confederate commerce raiders. Then, in June 1862, Bulloch contracted with the firm of John Laird and Sons for two armored


ships. More suited to Confederate requirements, these two, known thereafter as the Laird Rams, were 224.5 feet in length and drew only 15 feet of water. They were to mount four rifled guns in two rotating iron turrets and have an iron ram at the bow. The ships were protected by 4.5-inch midships hull armor supported by teak. The turrets had 5.5-inch iron protection. Bulloch did all he could to conceal the true destination for the ships, putting out the cover story that they had been ordered by the Egyptian government, but U.S. agents were not fooled, and heavy pressure by Washington along with changing Southern military fortunes in the summer of 1863 led the British government to seize both ships that October. The next year the British government purchased them for the Royal Navy as the Scorpion and Wivern. Bulloch also contracted at Bordeaux, France, for two small steam rams. Their cover names were the Cheops and Sphinx. These ships were some 172 feet in length and were to have one rifled gun in a pivot mount forward and two rifles in a stationary turret-shaped casemate aft. Each ship also had a large submerged ram. The armor belt was 3.5 to 4.75 inches backed with 16 inches of wood, while the forecastle and casemate had 4.5-inch plate. The French government intervened, and the Cheops was sold to Prussia while the Sphinx went to the Danes. When Denmark was defeated by Prussia in 1864, the ship went back to its builder, and Bulloch was then able to purchase it. Commissioned CSS Stonewall in January 1865 and the only foreign-built ironclad in Confederate service, it reached Havana in May 1865, but by then the war was over. It was eventually sold to Japan, where it was that nation’s first armored warship. Spencer C. Tucker See also Albemarle, CSS; Arkansas, CSS; Blockade of the Confederacy; Brooke Guns; Buchanan, Franklin; Bulloch, James Dunwody; Columbus Navy Yard; Cushing, William Barker; Davis, Jefferson Finis; Floating Battery; Georgia, CSS, Ironclad Floating Battery; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Iron and Steel Manufacture, Impact on Ship Construction; Ironclads, Union; James River; James River Squadron, CSA; Laird Rams; Louisiana, CSS; Mallory, Stephen Russell; Mississippi, CSS; Mississippi River; Mobile Bay, Battle of; Nashville, CSS, Ironclad; Naval Investigating Board, Confederate Congress; Neuse, CSS; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; Norfolk Navy Yard; Raleigh, CSS; Red River; Richmond, Virginia; Riverine Warfare; Scofield and Markham Gate City Iron Works; Selma Naval Gun Foundry; Shelby Iron Company; Spar Torpedo; Stonewall, CSS; Strategy, Confederate Naval; Tennessee, CSS; Tredegar Iron Works; Virginia, CSS

References Elliott, Robert G. Ironclads on the Roanoke: Gilbert Elliott’s Albemarle. Shippensburg, PA: White Mane, 1999. Greene, Jack, and Alessandro Massignani. Ironclads at War: The Origin and Development of the Armored Warship, 1854–1891. Conshohocken, PA: Combined Publishing, 1998. Melton, Maurice. The Confederate Ironclads. New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1968. Still, William N., Jr. Confederate Shipbuilding. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1987.

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Still, William N., Jr. Iron Afloat: The Story of the Confederate Armorclads. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1985. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Ironclads, Union Wooden ships were essential in the vast Union effort at sea, but the warships that elicited the most interest at the time and thereafter were the ironclads, and specifically the ironclad monitors. In response to the news that the Confederates had raised the scuttled U.S. steam frigate Merrimack at Norfolk and were refitting it as an ironclad, U.S. secretary of the navy Gideon Welles urged the creation of a board to study ironclad designs. In August 1861 Congress approved both the board and an appropriation of $1.5 million for ironclad construction. The board decided on light-draft ironclad vessels capable of operating off the Southern coasts. Although it received proposals for ironclads from some British yards, it chose to rely on U.S. firms alone. The board received 17 proposals, and in September it recommended the awarding of three contracts: the first to C. S. Bushnell and Company of New Haven, the second to Merrick and Sons of Philadelphia, and the third to John Ericsson of New York. Their completed ships were, respectively, the Galena, New Ironsides, and Monitor. The Galena was designed by Naval Constructor Samuel R. Pook and was 210 feet in length. Commissioned in April 1862, it mounted six guns. Equipped with a two-mast schooner rig to supplement its single-screw propeller, it had tumblehome sides protected by 3.25-inch armor formed of interlocking iron bars. The Galena disappointed as a ship type from its first combat action, when it was severely damaged during a duel with Confederate shore batteries at Drewry’s Bluff on the James River in May 1862. Its armor proved susceptible to plunging fire and was removed in 1863, converting the ship into an unarmored screw sloop with three-mast sail rig. The second experimental ironclad, the New Ironsides, was the least revolutionary of the three in design but was, in almost every respect, the most successful. The New Ironsides was the only broadsides ironclad in the Union Navy during the war. It proved its great worth in 16 months of service off Charleston. Launched in May 1862 and commissioned that August, the New Ironsides was 230 feet long between perpendiculars with a shallow draft suiting it for coastal operations. Patterned to a considerable extent after the French La Gloire, the New Ironsides was protected for most of its length by a 4.5-inch iron belt. The most powerful Union warship of the war, it boasted an iron ram and mounted a formidable battery of 16 heavy guns. The third Union ironclad was the Monitor. The board accepted this revolutionary design by John Ericsson only because of the perceived threat from the Virginia

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and because Ericsson promised to complete the work so quickly. The Monitor revolutionized naval warfare. Made entirely of iron, it incorporated numerous innovations, including forced draft ventilation. The ship was 179 feet long and had a draft of only 10 feet, 6 inches, half the size of CSS Virginia. It had two engines and a single-screw propeller. The ship’s most visible part was its 9-inchtall spindle-mounted turret amidships that mounted two XI-inch Dahlgren guns. The turret had eight layers of 1-inch iron plating. With only 18 inches of freeboard the Monitor came to be called “a hat on the water,” or “cheesebox on a raft.” Ericsson ignored the contract requirement of a sail as being impractical. All the monitors were coastal vessels rather than seagoing ships and as such were unsuited for blockade duties. In February 1862, before the Monitor-Virginia clash, Congress appropriated $10 million to build 20 additional ironclads. Relations between Washington and London were near the breaking point over the Trent Affair, and these new ships were to enhance the nation’s defensive posture against Great Britain and also enable the U.S. Navy to take the offensive against Southern ports. After the MonitorVirginia battle, virtually the entire North succumbed to so-called “monitor mania.” Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gustavus V. Fox was a strong supporter of their construction. Of 56 ironclads laid down by the North during the war, 52 were of the monitor, or turreted, type. Three weeks after the clash between the Monitor and Virginia, the navy contracted for 10 improved Ericsson monitors. These Passaic- and Canonicus-class ships were essentially modified versions of the Monitor. USS Passaic and its 9 sisters were 200 feet long between perpendiculars and had nearly twice the displacement of the Monitor. Drawing only 11 feet, 6 inches, they were designed to mount two XV-inch Dahlgrens, but several carried one XI-inch or one 8-inch Parrot rifled gun instead of the second XV-inch. The Passaic-class ships were commissioned in November 1862 and saw more service than any other Civil War monitors. Most of the nine-ship Canonicus-class monitors, only seven of which were commissioned, were 235 feet in length and mounted two XV-inch Dahlgrens. Ericsson also designed the large single-turreted USS Dictator and Puritan. Commissioned in November 1864, the Dictator was 312 feet in length and armed with two XVinch Dahlgrens. It had 15 inches of armor protection on the turret, 12 inches on the pilothouse, 6 inches on the sides, and 1.5 inches on the deck. The largest of the Ericsson monitors, the Puritan was a longer version of the Dictator. The Puritan, 340 feet long and designed to carry two XX-inch Dahlgren smoothbores, did not see service in the war. Launched in July 1864, the Puritan was never commissioned and was rebuilt as a new ship in 1874. The 20 Casco-class monitors were the Union’s major ship-design blunder of the war. Identified by their turtleback deck, they were 225 feet in length. The Casco was launched in May 1864 and commissioned that December, but most ships of the class were not delivered until after the war, the last coming in May 1866. Poor

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planning and faulty calculations meant that the Casco ships had only 3 feet of freeboard before they were fitted for turrets, which necessitated raising their decks. Some Cascos served without turrets and were armed with spar torpedoes. The Keokuk and Dunderberg were among later Union ironclads. The Keokuk had a turtleback hull that mounted a single XI-inch Dahlgren gun in each of two cylindrical fixed armored gunhouses pierced for three gun ports. Its weakness lay in its armor protection of horizontal iron bars alternating with wood, the whole covered with iron plate. It proved so vulnerable to heavy close-range fire that the ship sank after its first day of battle off Charleston in 1863. The ironclad ram Dunderberg was 337 feet, 4 inches, in overall length and had a casemate along the lines of CSS Virginia. Brigantine rigged and intended as a seagoing ironclad frigate ram, it was designed for broadside fire. It had a double bottom, a collision bulkhead, and a massive solid-oak ram. Although laid down late in 1862, construction was so delayed that the navy refused to accept it in 1866. France bought the ship to prevent it being sold to Prussia. Renamed the Rochambeau, it took part in the naval blockade of Prussia in 1870. Perhaps the most unusual turreted design of the war was the Roanoke. Cut down from the wooden screw frigate of the same name and 178 feet in overall length, it was rebuilt and recommissioned in June 1863. It had three centerline turrets, the only such vessel of the war. It also had high freeboard and thus was not a monitortype vessel. The Roanoke mounted six heavy guns, two in each turret. Unstable and of deep draft, the Roanoke was kept at New York to defend that harbor against possible Confederate attack. The Union also converted and built from scratch a number of ships for the western theater. Although the first three of the conversions were not ironclads, other converted river ships received iron protection. These included the Benton, a former catamaran snagboat (designed to pull debris from the river) and the most powerful of the early river ironclads. Commissioned in February 1862, it mounted 16 guns. The Essex, a converted merchant river ferry of 355 tons, was at first a timberclad, but in early 1862 it received 3-inch ironclad casemate protection. It mounted 5 guns. The army also ordered the construction of purpose-built ironclad warships for western river service. The first of these were the highly effective Cairo- or cityclass ships, named for towns on the western waters. The name ship of the class, the Cairo, was sunk by a mine in the Yazoo River in December 1862. The other ships were the Carondelet, Cincinnati, Louisville, Mound City, Pittsburg, and St. Louis. The Cairo-class ships were often referred to as “Pook Turtles,” for Naval Constructor Samuel R. Pook and for their rectangular casemates and sloped sides, which gave them a turtlelike appearance. Although underpowered, these river ironclads were heavily armed, but they mounted fewer than the 20 guns each originally planned (probably the consequence of their iron plating’s weight). In January 1862 each mounted 13 guns. Three of the guns fired forward. Each gunboat was

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protected with 2.5 inches of armor on the casemate and 1.25 inches on the conical pilothouse forward. James B. Eads also designed highly effective monitors for western service. In early 1862 he secured a government contract to design and build three singleturreted monitors. The first two to enter service were the Neosho class (the Neosho in May and Osage in July 1863). They were unique in being propelled by stern wheels, which however would not allow full 360-degree fire for their two turret-mounted XI-inch Dahlgren guns. Commissioned in February 1864, the Ozark combined a single turret mounting two XI-inch Dahlgrens and a casemate with one X-inch and three IX-inch Dahlgrens. Eads then secured a contract to build four double-turreted river monitors, known as the Milwaukee class of the Chickasaw, Kickapoo, Milwaukee, and Winnebago. These ships had one turret designed by Eads and the other by Ericsson. The forward-mounted Eads turret was a sophisticated design that turned on a ball-bearing race. It employed steam power for moving, elevating the guns, and operating the gun-port shutters, as well as an elevator that moved the guns down to a lower deck for reloading. Laid down in 1862, the four monitors were commissioned in the spring and summer of 1864. They had 8-inch turret armor and were each armed with four XI-inch Dahlgrens. The U.S. Navy retained its monitors into the 20th century. Unfortunately, the Civil War monitor craze inhibited the construction for the U.S. Navy of true seagoing ironclads. Until the 1880s it had no real seagoing armored ships that could fight other ironclads. Spencer C. Tucker See also Baron de Kalb, USS; Benton, USS; Blockade of the Confederacy; Cairo, USS; Cairo-Class River Ironclads; Carondelet, USS; Charleston, South Carolina, Du Pont’s Attack on; Cincinnati, USS; Dahlgren, John Adolph Bernard; Dahlgren Guns; Dictator, USS; Drewry’s Bluff, First Battle of; Dunderberg, USS; Du Pont, Samuel Francis; Eads, James Buchanan; Ericsson, John; Essex, USS; Farragut, David Glasgow; Foote, Andrew Hull; Fox, Gustavus Vasa; Galena, USS; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Iron and Steel Manufacture, Impact on Ship Construction; Ironclad Board, U.S. Navy; Ironclads, Confederate; James River; Keokuk, USS; Lenthall, John; Lincoln, Abraham; Louisville, USS; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Mobile Bay, Battle of; Monitor, USS; Monitor Mania; Mound City, USS; Neosho and Osage, USS; New Ironsides, USS; Norfolk Navy Yard; Parrott Guns; Passaic-Class Monitors; Pittsburg, USS; Porter, David Dixon; Puritan, USS; Red River; Red River Campaign; Riverine Warfare; Roanoke, USS; Spar Torpedo; Strategy, Union Naval; Trent Affair; Vicksburg Campaign; Virginia, CSS; Welles, Gideon; Yazoo River

References De Kay, James Tertius. Monitor. New York: Walker, 1997. Greene, Jack, and Alessandro Massignani. Ironclads at War: The Origin and Development of the Armored Warship, 1854–1891. Conshohocken, PA: Combined Publishing, 1998. Mindell, David A. War, Technology, and Experience aboard the USS Monitor. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.

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Roberts, William H. Civil War Ironclads: The U.S. Navy and Industrial Mobilization. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. Roberts, William H. USS New Ironsides in the Civil War. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1999. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Isherwood, Benjamin Franklin Birth Date: October 6, 1822 Death Date: June 19, 1915 U.S. Navy officer who had a distinguished career as a naval engineer. His engine designs and experimental studies established him as a leading marine engineer in the mid-19th century. Benjamin F. Isherwood was born in New York City on October 6, 1822. At the age of nine, he was sent to the Albany Academy, a preparatory school that emphasized the sciences. After being expelled in 1836 for misconduct, he found work as a draftsman in the mechanical department of the Utica and Schenectady Railroad for two years, and then spent many months in the field observing road and bridge construction. During the next few years, he worked on the construction of the Croton Aqueduct, was employed by the Erie Railroad, and designed a new and efficient type of lighthouse lens for the U.S. Treasury Department. When an engineering corps was established in the U.S. Navy in 1842, Isherwood was interested in the opportunity to serve. To acquire the necessary experience on marine engines, he spent a short time employed at the Novelty Iron Works in New York. After he received an appointment as a first assistant engineer on May 23, 1844, he was assigned to the Pensacola Navy Yard. When the engineer corps reorganized about a year later, a review board downgraded him to a second assistant engineer on January 26, 1846. He continued his service aboard ships during the Mexican-American War (1846–1848), and by July 1847 he had been returned to his original rank. After several years stationed in Washington, D.C., and Europe, he became a commissioned officer at the rank of chief engineer on August 13, 1849. Throughout the 1850s Isherwood studied the performance of steam engines in U.S. and foreign ships. He published his analyses in books and journals, proving to be a prolific writer on the subject. Continuing to increase his knowledge and experience, he supervised the construction of a lighthouse in Massachusetts, designed a new engine for the paddle sloop Allegheny, devised a new type of paddle wheel, served in the Far East, and designed engines for Russian gunboats. Recognized for his energy and ability, Isherwood became the engineer in chief of the U.S. Navy on March 26, 1861. Within only a few weeks, he was ordered to repair the engines of the screw frigate Merrimack at the Norfolk Navy Yard so that the ship could be evacuated if the yard were seized by the Confederates. Isherwood

324 |â•‡ Island Number 10, Battle of

had the ship repaired in record time, but the yard’s commanding officer refused to allow it to set sail. After Isherwood departed, the State of Virginia moved to take the yard; its buildings were burned, and many of the ships there were scuttled. Isherwood’s challenge in the Civil War was to prepare the navy for its blockade operations against the Southern ports. At the start of the war, the fleet consisted of only 42 ships, many of which were overseas. Steamships were needed that were fast, reliable, and maneuverable in rivers and near shorelines. Isherwood designed and directed the construction of the machinery for 46 paddle wheel ships and 79 screw steamers, in addition to engines for gunboats. The engines he designed were sufficiently strong to withstand the stress of wartime use by inexperienced personnel. Perhaps Isherwood’s most famous design was the Wampanoag-class of screw cruisers, considered the fastest in the world at the time with speeds of up to 17.75 knots. Isherwood became the first chief of the new Bureau of Steam Engineering in 1863. The unit, separated from the Bureau of Construction and Repair, was able to more efficiently meet the needs of the new steam navy. During his tenure, Isherwood also changed the navy’s usual procurement process. Finding civilian contractors to be unreliable, he had purchased tools for the navy to build its own engines. Despite his accomplishments in the bureau, Isherwood had his critics, some undoubtedly politically motivated. After serving eight years, Isherwood was removed from office. During his last active-duty years, he conducted propeller experiments, served on engineering boards, and studied foreign navies. He retired as chief engineer on October 6, 1884, and was later promoted to the rank of rear admiral on the retired list. He continued his professional writing until his death in New York City on June 19, 1915. Donna Smith See also Blockade of the Confederacy; Ironclads, Union; Norfolk Navy Yard; Pensacola Navy Yard; Virginia, CSS

References Bennett, Frank M. The Steam Navy of the United States: A History of the Growth of the Steam Vessel of War in the U.S. Navy, and of the Naval Engineer Corps. 1896; reprint, Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1970. Dyson, George W. “Benjamin Franklin Isherwood.” United States Naval Institute Proceedings 67, Pt. 2 (1941): 1138–1146. Sloan, Edward William. Benjamin Franklin Isherwood, Naval Engineer. Annapolis, MD: U.S. Naval Institute, 1965.

Island Number 10, Battle of Event Date: April 7, 1862 Battle for a key Confederate defense on the upper Mississippi River. Following the federal victories at forts Donelson and Henry in February 1862, commander of the

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Union Department of the Missouri, Major General Henry W. Halleck, authorized an operation down the Mississippi River, its immediate goal being to secure New Madrid, Missouri, and nearby Island Number 10. Island Number 10 no longer exists and is now a part of the Missouri shore. In 1862 it was about a mile long and a quarter-mile wide and lay at a long inverted “S”-bend in the river about 40 miles below Columbus, Kentucky. Surrounded by cypress-entangled swamps, Reelfoot Lake, and the great river itself, the island was not easily accessible to land forces. Its Confederate defenders were dependent for communications and resupply on the river and a single road on the Tennessee side through Tiptonville. If Union troops could sever these supply routes, the garrison would be trapped. When on March 3 the Confederates evacuated Columbus, Major General Leonidas Polk ordered Brigadier General John P. McCown’s division south to join 1,500 troops already in garrison at Island Number 10. At the same time Polk ordered Commander George N. Hollins to move his five gunboats there. Utilizing heavy guns from Columbus, the Confederates created there a formidable defensive position. The outer works consisted of field batteries along the riverbanks, commanding the channel for 10–12 miles north. The island itself held 19 guns and the land bluffs 43, with batteries arranged to deliver concentrated fire. The Confederates also had a floating battery with 9 heavy guns. At Island Number 10, the Mississippi made a sharp bend and then ran to the northwest. The town of New Madrid, Missouri, actually farther north than Island Number 10, was six miles downriver. At New Madrid the river resumed a southerly direction. In order to prevent the island from being attacked by land forces from the Missouri side, the Confederates fortified New Madrid with two earthen forts and a total of 21 guns. They also fortified the Tennessee side of the river. McCown, who took charge of the Madrid Bend area on February 26, commanded 7,500 men. In order to take Island Number 10, Union forces would first have to capture New Madrid and cut the fort off from communication downriver. Halleck assigned this task to Brigadier General John Pope’s new Army of the Mississippi, comprising 18,000 men. Pope marched 50 miles overland and brought New Madrid under siege on March 3. On March 12 Union siege guns arrived, and the next day Union gunners opened a heavy bombardment. Panicking, McCown abandoned New Madrid. The evacuation on the night of March 13 was poorly executed, and much equipment was simply abandoned. A heavy thunderstorm masked the withdrawal, however. Union troops did not realize what had happened until the morning. This 15-day campaign had seen few casualties—only about 50 killed and wounded on each side—but Island Number 10 was now cut off from most river communication and means of resupply. McCown’s superior, General Pierre G. T. Beauregard, hoped Island Number 10’s defenders would at least buy time to strengthen Fort Pillow and enable General Albert Sidney Johnston to attack Grant at Pittsburg Landing. Beauregard now

326 |â•‡ Island Number 10, Battle of

ordered the Madrid Bend garrison south to Pillow and informed McCown that he would not be reinforced. Union flotilla commander Andrew H. Foote had delayed moving to Island Number 10 in order to prepare his ironclads, and he was apprehensive about fighting downstream because of the strong river current and the fact that any disabled boat would drift downriver under the Confederate guns. Foote finally set out on March 14 from Cairo with 7 gunboats, 10 mortar boats, and an assortment of other craft. At Columbus the flotilla met 1,200 Union troops in transports and convoyed them south. It reached the vicinity of Island Number 10 on the morning of March 15. On March 16 Foote positioned his mortar boats with their 13-inch mortars along the shore in the hope that their fire would reduce the Confederate positions before he ran his gunboats to New Madrid. Shelling began that afternoon, but it was inaccurate and had little effect beyond driving some of the defenders from their positions. The next morning, Foote attempted a long-range attack on the Confederate defenses with his ironclads, but its net effect was one gun dismounted, one man killed, and seven men wounded. The flotilla took some hits in return, but the most costly blow was self-inflicted; an old army rifled 42-pounder burst on one of the gunboats, killing and wounding 15 officers and men. Foote now settled in for a long siege, shelling the defenses around the clock from long range. But the small, dispersed redoubts were difficult targets. Meanwhile, on the other side of Island Number 10, Union troops moved a 24-pounder upriver along the shore, and on the morning of the 18th they opened fire on Confederate steamers unloading supplies across the river at Tiptonville, damaging several Confederate vessels. Hollins, unwilling to risk his vulnerable wooden ships to the heavy Union guns, withdrew below Tiptonville, taking with him much of the garrison’s provisions. His squadron was no longer a factor in the battle. Although Union general Pope now held New Madrid, swamps prevented his reaching the vicinity of Island Number 10 on the Missouri side. And with no transports, he had no means of crossing over to the Tennessee side to attack the Confederate rear. On March 18 Foote rejected Pope’s request that he send gunboats past Island Number 10. In a meeting of gunboat captains on March 20, all but one declared themselves opposed to such an attempt. By March 24 there was stalemate and little action except daily shelling by the Union mortars, which had little effect. Occasionally the gunboats would join in. On March 25 the monotony of the siege was broken by the ascent of the Eagle, a Union balloon, in the only use of balloon observation in the West during the war. Meanwhile, on March 23 work had begun on one of the more innovative engineering achievements of the war. Over a three-week period, hundreds of Union soldiers and sailors, supported by four shallow draft steamers and six coal barges, used a variety of tools and 2 million feet of lumber to cut a canal 50 feet wide and 12 miles long, from the bend of the Mississippi near Island No. 8 across the swampy peninsula to near New Madrid. Three-fourths of a mile went through solid

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earth, and six miles ran through timber that had to be cut off and dragged out from under water. Although not deep enough for Foote’s gunboats, the canal could take light steamers, tugs, and transports. Convinced that the project would fail, McCown did nothing to impede the Union work. Beauregard now replaced McCown with Brigadier General William W. Mackall, who took up his command on March 31. Mackall reported that his troops were both “disheartened” and “apathetic.” He said that when the river dropped there would be little he could do; there were simply too many places for Union troops to cross. Pope was determined to get across the Mississippi. He had some steamers available, but he informed Foote that he would have to have at least one gunboat to control the opposite bank. On March 30 Foote authorized Commander Henry Walke of the Carondelet to make an attempt to run past Island No 10. Meanwhile, on the night of April 1 sailors landed 50 soldiers, who took out one of the Confederate shore batteries without loss. Then on April 4 Foote’s ironclads and mortar boats shelled the floating battery, disabling it and causing it to drift downriver. A storm on the night of April 4–5 enabled the Carondelet to run past Island Number 10 to New Madrid. Early on April 7 another heavy thunderstorm provided cover for the Pittsburg, as it too ran the gauntlet unscathed. That same day the two Union ironclads shelled and neutralized Confederate batteries opposite Point Pleasant and then covered Pope’s steamers as they ferried troops across the Mississippi. The Union troops then worked their way inland and secured the Tiptonville Road. Island Number 10 was cut off. Mackall, caught in a trap with a Union army-navy assault imminent and large numbers of his men deserting, now ordered a withdrawal. On the evening of April 7, Captain W. Y. C. Hume, commanding Island Number 10, sent officers to Foote asking for terms. Foote demanded unconditional surrender, which Hume accepted early on April 8. Only about 1,000 Confederates, principally from the upper batteries on the Tennessee side of the river, managed to escape, most of them through the swamps. The loss of Island Number 10 was more grievous for the South than was the carnage of the Battle of Shiloh (April 6–7, 1862). The Union took 4,500 prisoners, 5,000 small arms, and 109 cannon and mortars. It also secured four steamers and the floating battery, as well as quantities of ammunition, supplies, and provisions. And it was a cheap victory in terms of Union casualties: only 7 killed, 14 wounded, and 4 missing, more than half to accidental causes. Fort Pillow was the next Union objective. Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Anaconda Strategy; Balloons; Cairo-Class River Ironclads; Cairo Naval Station; Carondelet, USS; Floating Battery; Foote, Andrew Hull; Fort Donelson, Battle of; Fort Henry, Battle of; Fort Pillow, Tennessee; Hollins, George Nichols; Ironclads, Union; Mississippi River; Mississippi River Defense Fleet; Mississippi Squadron,

328 |â•‡ Island Number 10, Battle of U.S. Navy; Mortar Boats; Pittsburg, USS; Plum Point Bend, Battle of; Riverine Warfare; Timberclads; Walke, Henry

References Daniel, Larry J., and Lynn N. Bock. Island No. 10: Struggle for the Mississippi Valley. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1996. Milligan, John D. Gunboats Down the Mississippi. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1965. Tucker, Spencer C. Andrew Foote: Civil War Admiral on Western Waters. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

J James River River that flows for 410 miles through central Virginia. The James River has its source in the Allegheny Mountains in the western part of the state, beginning near the confluence of the Jackson and Cowpasture rivers. It flows slightly south, then slightly north, and then generally southeast into the Chesapeake Bay at Hampton Roads. The river is tidal nearly to Richmond, the capital city of Virginia and of the Confederate States of America. Richmond is located at the fall line; east of Richmond the river is navigable for large vessels; west of the city the river is partly navigable, but only to small boats. The James has numerous important tributaries, including the Appomattox, Chickahominy, Warwick, Pagan, and Nansemond rivers. The Elizabeth River flows into the James River near its mouth, which forms a deepwater harbor and shipping channel known as Hampton Roads. The James River has a storied history. Before the Europeans arrived, the powerful Powhatan Confederacy was centered along the lower James River. In 1607 the first permanent English settlement in America was established at Jamestown, about 35 miles upstream from Hampton Roads. The river quickly became a major thoroughfare for trade, especially after the English began exporting large amounts of tobacco grown on plantations along the lower James River. The James helped make Virginia the wealthiest British colony in North America and led to the rapid growth of Richmond. In the early 19th century, the James River was part of a canal system that linked western Virginia with the Tidewater region. Because of Richmond’s location at the fall line of the James, numerous rail lines were built to service the city’s port facilities. The Union realized full well the strategic value of the James, which afforded a direct route into the Confederate capital. Many Civil War battles were fought along the river, from Richmond all the way to Hampton Roads. Control of the James ultimately meant control of Richmond. Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr. See also Amphibious Warfare; City Point, Virginia; Drewry’s Bluff, First Battle of; Goldsborough, Louis Malesherbes; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Hampton Roads, Virginia; Ironclads, Confederate; Ironclads, Union; James River Squadron, CSA; Mallory, Stephen Russell; Mitchell, John Kirkwood; Monitor, USS; Naval Academy, Confederate; Norfolk Navy Yard; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Parker, William Harwar; Richmond, Virginia; Riverine Warfare; Semmes, Raphael; Sewell’s Point, Virginia, U.S. Navy Shelling 329

330 |â•‡ James River Squadron, CSA of; Strategy, Confederate Naval; Strategy, Union Naval; Torpedoes; Trent’s Reach, Battle of; Tucker, John Randolph; Virginia, CSS

References Dabney, Virginius. Richmond: The Story of a City. New York: Doubleday, 1976. Robertson, James I. Civil War Virginia: Battleground for a Nation. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1993.

James River Squadron, CSA Small Confederate naval squadron on the James River, from just east of Richmond to the Chesapeake Bay. Within days of Virginia’s secession from the Union on April 17, 1861, the James River Squadron was formed as part of the Virginia State Navy. Subsequently, upon Virginia joining the Confederate States of America on June 8, 1861, the following ships were turned over to the Confederacy: the sailing ship Confederate States (ex–USS United States); the side-wheeler steam gunboats Jamestown and Patrick Henry; and the other steam vessels George Page, Logan, Northampton, and Teaser. Commander John R. Tucker assumed command of the squadron. Following its commissioning in early March 1862, the Confederate ironclad Virginia, formerly the U.S. Navy steam frigate Merrimack, became the squadron’s flagship. During the Battle of Hampton Roads, on March 8–9, it engaged and destroyed the Union sailing sloop Cumberland and the sailing frigate Congress and fought to a draw the U.S. Navy ironclad Monitor. The squadron’s second flagship, the Patrick Henry, was modified for use as a schoolship. In October 1863 it became the home of the Confederate States Naval Academy at Drewry’s Bluff, under the command of First Lieutenant William H. Parker. Other ironclads subsequently joined the squadron. By 1864 it included three ironclads in the upper James: the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Virginia II. The Confederates also deployed in the river an elaborate system of electrically detonated mines, known as torpedoes. In January 1865 Flag Officer John K. Mitchell, Confederate commander of the James River Squadron, under pressure from Secretary of the Navy Stephen R. Mallory to take action, launched a precipitous assault down the James River in an effort to take the Union Army’s supply base at City Point. Mitchell commanded 11 ships, including the 3 most powerful remaining Confederate ironclads: the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Virginia II. The engagement of January 23–24 ended in failure. The gunboat Drewry blew up from a Union mortar shell, while the torpedo boat Scorpion was captured. The Richmond and Virginia II were both damaged. Displeasure with Mitchell’s handling of the affair led to his replacement on February 18 with Rear Admiral Raphael Semmes.

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On April 2, when Confederate general Robert E. Lee abandoned Richmond and Petersburg and attempted to escape westward, Semmes had no choice but to scuttle his ships. Early on the morning of April 3, Semmes ordered the three ironclads fired and the five wooden gunboats moved upstream to Richmond. At Richmond, the men of the squadron found much of the city in flames, including the schoolship Patrick Henry. After their crews came ashore, the gunboats were then themselves set on fire and set adrift in the James. The gunboat Beaufort failed to sink, and Union forces took possession of it and the unfinished ironclad Texas. A number of sailors from the squadron formed Tucker’s Battalion and fought in the Battle of Sayler’s Creek on April 6, 1865. They subsequently surrendered with the rest of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House three days later. Robert A. Lynn and Spencer C. Tucker See also City Point, Virginia; Drewry’s Bluff, First Battle of; Goldsborough, Louis Malesherbes; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Hampton Roads, Virginia; Ironclads, Confederate; Ironclads, Union; James River; Mallory, Stephen Russell; Mitchell, John Kirkwood; Monitor, USS; Naval Academy, Confederate; Norfolk Navy Yard; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Parker, William Harwar; Richmond, Virginia; Riverine Warfare; Semmes, Raphael; Sewell’s Point, Virginia, U.S. Navy Shelling of; Strategy, Confederate Naval; Strategy, Union Naval; Torpedoes; Trent’s Reach, Battle of; Tucker, John Randolph; Virginia, CSS

References Coski, John M. Capital Navy: The Men, Ships and Operations of the James River Squadron. Campbell, CA: Savas, 1996. Still, William N., Jr. Iron Afloat: The Story of the Confederate Armorclads. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1985.

Johnston, James D. Birth Date: 1817 Death Date: May 9, 1896 Confederate Navy officer. James D. Johnston was born in Kentucky in 1817. He received a midshipman’s warrant on June 30, 1832, and was promoted to passed midshipman on June 28, 1838, and to lieutenant on June 24, 1843. Among other assignments, Johnston served under Commodore Josiah Tattnall as executive officer in USS Powhatan when that ship was part of the East Asia Squadron during 1853–1856. Following the establishment of the Confederate States of America, Johnston resigned from the U.S. Navy on April 10, 1861. He received a commission as a lieutenant in the Confederate Navy on April 13, 1861, and was advanced to commander on June 2, 1864, with date of rank from October 4, 1863.

332 |â•‡ Johnston, James D.

During the war, Johnston was first assigned as a lighthouse inspector and then sent to the New Orleans station, but before the end of 1861 he was transferred to Mobile, Alabama, where he spent the remainder of the war. There he commanded CSS Baltic during 1862–1863. He then served in the Confederate ironclad ram Tennessee as flag captain to Rear Admiral Franklin Buchanan. When Buchanan was wounded in the Battle of Mobile Bay (August 5, 1864), Johnston assumed command of the ship. After the war, Johnston staunchly defended Buchanan and attributed the surrender of his ship entirely to “a defect in her construction” that exposed the ship’s steering apparatus, but he also conceded that the Tennessee’s ultimate capture or destruction was “a foregone conclusion.” Johnston formally surrendered his sword to U.S. Navy rear admiral David G. Farragut aboard the Union flagship Hartford. He was then held prisoner in Fort Warren in Boston Harbor before being exchanged on October 18, 1864. With the end of the war, Johnston was paroled in Alabama on May 10, 1865, but he then traveled to Washington, D.C., where he secured his certificate of amnesty in June. Johnston apparently hoped to settle in Baltimore, but by 1866 he was living in Mobile, where his brother also resided and where he became an insurance agent. He transferred his insurance agency to Savannah, Georgia, about 1873 and died there on May 9, 1896. He is buried in Norfolk, Virginia, next to his wife. At the time of his death, Johnston was the ranking surviving officer of the Confederate Navy and had served for several years as vice president of the Confederate Veterans Association. In retirement, Johnston also wrote to defend the role of the Tennessee in the Battle of Mobile Bay. Spencer C. Tucker See also Baltic, CSS; Buchanan, Franklin; Farragut, David Glasgow; Fort Warren, Massachusetts; Hartford, USS; Ironclads, Confederate; Ironclads, Union; Mobile Bay, Battle of; New Orleans, Louisiana; Powhatan, USS; Tattnall, Josiah; Tennessee, CSS

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Johnston, James D. “The Ram Tennessee at Mobile Bay.” In Battles and Leaders of the Civil War: Being for the Most Part Contributions by Union and Confederate Officers, 4 vols., edited by Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence Clough Buel, 4:401–406. 1883; reprint, Secaucus, NJ: Castle, n.d. Parker, Foxhall A. The Battle of Mobile Bay and the Capture of Forts Powell, Gaines and Morgan, by the Combined Sea and Land Forces of the U.S. under the Command of Rear-Admiral Farragut and Major-General Granger. Boston: A. Williams, 1878. Register of Officers of the Confederate States Navy, 1861–1865: As Compiled and Revised by the Office of Naval Records and Library, United States Navy Department, 1931, from All Available Data. With a new introduction by John M. Carroll. Mattituck, NY: J. M. Carroll, 1981. [Originally published by the Naval Record and Library, U.S. Navy Department, in 1898 and revised in 1931.]

Jones, Catesby ap Rogerâ•‡ | 333

Jones, Catesby ap Roger Birth Date: April 15, 1821 Death Date: June 20, 1877 Confederate Navy officer. Born on April 15, 1821, in Clark County, Virginia, Catesby ap Roger Jones entered the navy as a midshipman on June 18, 1836. He served in the Pacific, with the East India Squadron, and in 1841 joined the Depot of Charts in Washington, D.C. He was advanced to passed midshipman on July 1, 1842. During the Mexican-American War (1846–1848), he served in the Pacific without seeing much action. Promoted to master on September 14, 1848, and to lieutenant on May 12, 1849, he took a lengthy leave and traveled to Paris, where he was injured during the December 1851 coup d’état of President Louis Napoleon Bonaparte. Returning home in 1853, Jones assisted Lieutenant John A. Dahlgren with experiments on the latter’s new cannon. At Dahlgren’s request in early 1856, Jones became the ordnance and watch officer in the screw steam frigate USS Merrimac. He was an ordnance officer during the navy’s 1858 Paraguayan expedition. With the beginning of the Civil War, Jones resigned his commission in the U.S. Navy on April 17, 1861. Commissioned a lieutenant in the Confederate States Navy, he took command of the Confederate defenses at Jamestown Island on the James River. In mid-November 1861 he became executive and ordnance officer aboard CSS Virginia (formerly USS Merrimac), which was being rebuilt as an ironclad warship. Jones oversaw the completion and arming of the ironclad and recruited and trained its officers and crew. During the first day of the Battle of Hampton Roads, on March 8, 1862, the Virginia wreaked havoc on the Union blockading force in Chesapeake Bay. When Captain Franklin Buchanan was wounded, Jones assumed command and, on Buchanan’s orders, caused the destruction of the frigate USS Congress. Jones remained in command of the ironclad the next day when it dueled with the Union ironclad Monitor. He remained the Virginia’s executive officer until it was scuttled to prevent capture in May 1862. Promoted to commander in 1863, Jones commanded the Confederate gunboat Chattahoochee at Columbus, Georgia; the naval works at Charlotte, North Carolina; and the Confederate naval gun foundry and ordnance works at Selma, Alabama, where he remained until the end of the war. After the war, Jones worked for a short time in South America, where several nations sought his ordnance expertise. Retiring with his family to Selma, he was shot and killed in a domestic quarrel with a neighbor on June 20, 1877. Gene Allen Smith See also Buchanan, Franklin; Charlotte Navy Yard; Columbus Navy Yard; Dahlgren, John Adolph Bernard; Dahlgren Guns; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Ironclads, Â�Confederate;

334 |â•‡ Jones, Catesby ap Roger Â� Ironclads, Union; James River; Monitor, USS; Norfolk Navy Yard; Selma Naval Gun Foundry; Virginia, CSS; Washington Navy Yard

References Davis, William C. Duel between the First Ironclads. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975. Jones, Catesby ap R. “Services of the Virginia (Merrimac).” Southern Historical Society Papers 1 (1876): 90–91. Jones, Lewis Hampton. Captain Roger Jones of London and Virginia. Albany, NY: Joel Munsell’s Sons, 1891. Mabry, W. S. Brief Sketch of the Career of Captain Catesby Ap R. Jones. Privately printed, 1912. Smith, Gene A. Iron and Heavy Guns; Duel between the Monitor and Merrimac. Abilene, TX: McWhiney Foundation Press, 1998.

K Kearsarge, USS U.S. Navy screw sloop and one of the most famous ships of the Civil War. The Kearsarge was the second in the two-ship Mohican class, which entered service in 1859. Both ships were built at the Portsmouth Naval Yard in New Hampshire. Commissioned in January 1862, the Kearsarge was 1,550 tons; 198 feet, 6 inches, in length between perpendiculars by 33 feet, 10 inches, in beam; and with a draft of 15 feet, 9 inches. Bark-rigged and capable of 11 knots under steam, the ship mounted two XI-inch Dahlgren smoothbores in pivot mounts fore and aft and four 32-pounders in broadsides. The ship’s armament also included a 30-pounder rifled gun and a small 12-pounder boat howitzer (the latter not included in the official armament). The ship’s normal complement was 160 men. The Kearsarge served with the European Squadron from 1862 to 1866, and in June 1864 it was stationed off Calais watching the Confederate commerce raiders Georgia and Rappahannock when word was received that the raider Alabama was at Cherbourg. Captain John A. Winslow and his well-trained crew had spent a year searching for the Alabama, and he was determined that it would not again elude him. The Kearsarge was soon under way. Only two months out of a Dutch dockyard and in excellent condition, it arrived off Cherbourg on June 14. The Alabama’s captain, Raphael Semmes, elected to fight, and the battle occurred on June 19, 1864, in the English Channel off Cherbourg. In one of the most spectacular Civil War naval engagements, the Kearsarge sank the Alabama. The Kearsarge enjoyed a long service life. It served in the South Pacific during 1868–1870, in the Asiatic Squadron during 1873–1877, in the North Atlantic Squadron during 1879–1882, in the Mediterranean during 1883–1886, and in the West Indies during 1888–1894. It succumbed only to shipwreck, which occurred on the Rancador Bank off Nicaragua on February 2, 1894. Spencer C. Tucker See also Alabama, CSS; Alabama vs. Kearsarge; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Dahlgren Guns; Georgia, CSS, Commerce Raider; Portsmouth Navy Yard; Rappahannock, CSS; Semmes, Raphael; Winslow, John Ancrum

References Marvel, William. The Alabama and the Kearsarge: The Sailor’s Civil War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996. 335

336 |â•‡ Kell, John McIntosh Silverstone, Paul H. Civil War Navies, 1855–1883. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2001. Tucker, Spencer C. Raphael Semmes and the Alabama. Abilene, TX: McWhiney Foundation Press, 1996.

Kell, John McIntosh Birth Date: January 23, 1823 Death Date: October 5, 1900 Confederate Navy officer. Born near Darien, Georgia, on January 23, 1823, John McIntosh Kell entered the U.S. Navy on a midshipman’s warrant on September 9, 1841. His first assignment was in the sloop Falmouth, assigned to the Home Squadron. Following a cruise in the Falmouth, he then served in the new frigate Savannah and schooner Shark in the Pacific Squadron, stationed off South America and California during 1843–1847. He also saw action on land in the campaign to secure California during the Mexican-American War (1846–1848). In November 1847 Kell reported to the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, where he spent seven months preparing for his examinations, which he passed in July 1848, although records list his promotion to passed midshipman as August 10, 1847. Kell was then assigned to the sloop Albany. While aboard the Albany on a cruise in the West Indies in February 1848, Kell and three other passed midshipmen refused an order they perceived to be demeaning: lighting a candle to summon the relief attendant, a task usually carried out by ordinary midshipmen rather than passed midshipmen. The ship’s captain, Commander Victor M. Randolph, brought the three up before a court-martial. Found guilty in August, they were formally dismissed from the service in November 1849 but were reinstated in late 1850. In December 1850, Kell was assigned to the steam frigate Susquehanna. Kell took part in Commodore Matthew C. Perry’s expedition to Japan in 1853, and he was master of the flagship Mississippi on the homeward cruise. Kell was formally promoted to master on September 14, 1855, and to lieutenant on that same date. With the secession of Georgia from the Union, Kell resigned his commission in the U.S. Navy on January 23, 1861. Initially in the Georgia state navy, he was commissioned a lieutenant in the Confederate Navy on March 26, 1861. Kell was promoted to commander in June 1864, to rank from October 4, 1863. Kell first served as the executive officer under Captain Raphael Semmes in the first Confederate commerce raider, the Sumter, during 1861–1862, and then followed Semmes in the same position to the commerce raider Alabama during 1862– 1864. Responsible for the day-to-day operations of the cruiser, he played a key role in that ship’s success and was with the Alabama for the entirety of its cruise,

Keokuk, USSâ•‡ | 337

including the sinking of the Union side-wheel schooner Hatteras off Galveston, Texas (January 11, 1863), and the loss of the Alabama in its engagements with the U.S. Navy steam sloop Kearsarge off Cherbourg, France (June 19, 1864). Rescued by the British yacht Deerfield following the sinking of the Alabama, Kell returned to the Confederacy. He commanded the Confederate Navy ironclad Richmond in the James River Squadron from December 31, 1864, to February 1865. He thus took part in the Battle of the James River (Trent’s Reach) on January 23–24, 1865. Granted a leave of absence for poor health on March 24, 1865, Kell returned to Georgia to convalesce and signed parole papers on May 16, 1865, in Macon. Kell settled in Spalding County, Georgia, and sought to make a living by farming. He published several articles on the Alabama and strongly defended its role in the Civil War. After several decades of “profitless farming,” Kell secured in 1887 appointment as Georgia’s adjutant general, to which position he was periodically reappointed until his death in Atlanta on October 5, 1900. The previous spring he had signed a contract to publish his memoir, Recollections of a Naval Life, which was published in the year of his death. Spencer C. Tucker See also Alabama, CSS; Alabama vs. Hatteras; Alabama vs. Kearsarge; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Ironclads, Confederate; James River Squadron, CSA; Kearsarge, USS; Mississippi, USS; Naval Academy, United States; Richmond, CSS; Semmes, Raphael; Sumter, CSS; Trent’s Reach, Battle of; Winslow, John Ancrum

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Coski, John M. Capital Navy: The Men, Ships and Operations of the James River Squadron. Campbell, CA: Savas, 1996. Delaney, Norman C. John McIntosh Kell of the Raider Alabama. University: University of Alabama Press, 1973. Kell, John McIntosh. Recollections of a Naval Life. Washington, DC: Neale, 1900. Register of Officers of the Confederate States Navy, 1861–1865: As Compiled and Revised by the Office of Naval Records and Library, United States Navy Department, 1931, from All Available Data. With a new introduction by John M. Carroll. Mattituck, NY: J. M. Carroll, 1981. [Originally published by the Naval Record and Library, U.S. Navy Department, in 1898 and revised in 1931.] Tucker, Spencer C. Raphael Semmes and the Alabama. Abilene, TX: McWhiney Foundation Press, 1996.

Keokuk, USS U.S. Navy ironclad. Built at New York City under U.S. Navy contract with Charles W. Whitney, John Ericsson’s partner, and constructed by the firm of Underhill, the Keokuk was laid down on April 19, 1862; launched on December 6, 1862; and

338 |â•‡ Keokuk, USS

commissioned in March 1863. Originally laid down as the Moodna and renamed the Keokuk for the city in Iowa, the ship was 677 tons burden; 159 feet, 6 inches, in overall length; and 36 feet in beam, and it had a depth of 13 feet, 6 inches, and draft of 8 feet, 6 inches. The Keokuk was protected by 4-inch armor. Propelled by two screws, it had a maximum speed of 9 knots. Armament consisted of two XIinch Dahlgren smoothbore guns. The ship had a crew complement of 92 officers and men. The Keokuk was an unusual warship. Designed by Whitney, it carried its guns in two stationary cylindrical towers, each pierced with three gun ports. It had a turtleback hull designed to deflect shot. The ship’s weakness lay in its armor protection, consisting of 4-inch horizontal iron bars, laid on edgeways and an inch apart, with the intervening spaces filled with wood, all sheathed with a boilerplate iron sheet. Total armor thickness was 5.75 inches. Captained by Commander Alexander C. Rhind, the Keokuk sailed from New York on March 11 to join the ships of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron off Charleston, South Carolina. It arrived at Hampton Roads two days later and sailed again on March 17 but was forced to return to Hampton Roads when one of its propellers fouled a buoy. The Keokuk finally arrived off Charleston on March 26. On April 5, 1863, the Keokuk helped lay buoys for Rear Admiral Samuel F. Du Pont’s planned attack on Charleston, and then took part in the attack as the last ship in the line of nine ironclads employed by Du Pont in the attack. Running ahead of the crippled Nahant to avoid fouling it in the narrow channel, the Keokuk came within about 600 yards of Fort Sumter’s guns and remained there for some 30 minutes. The ironclad was hit some 90 times, 19 of these entering at or below the waterline. Having difficulty keeping his ship afloat, Rhind withdrew from the action, and pilot Robert Smalls was able to anchor the ship overnight off Morris Island, beyond the range of Confederate guns. The crew of the Keokuk was able to keep the ship afloat that night only because the water was calm. Despite assistance from the tug Dandelion, the Keokuk sank the next morning when a wind came up. At 7:40 a.m., Rhind ordered the crew to abandon ship, and the monitor went down a half hour later, with only its funnels remaining visible. The Confederates later recovered its two XI-inch guns and a signals key. They were thus fully aware of the timing of a boat attack on Fort Sumter mounted by Du Pont’s successor, Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren, on the night of September 8–9, 1863, and were easily able to defeat it. Spencer C. Tucker See also Charleston, South Carolina, Du Pont’s Attack on; Dahlgren, John Adolph Bernard; Dahlgren Guns; Du Pont, Samuel Francis; Ericsson, John; Fort Sumter, South Carolina; Fort Sumter, Union Attacks on; Ironclads, Union; Smalls, Robert; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron

Kilty, Augustus H.â•‡ | 339

References Canney, Donald L. The Old Steam Navy. 2 vols. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1990, 1993. Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 14. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1902. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. II, Vol. 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1921. Weddle, Kevin J. Lincoln’s Tragic Admiral: The Life of Samuel Francis Du Pont. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2005.

Kilty, Augustus H. Birth Date: 1807 Death Date: November 10, 1879 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1807, Augustus H. Kilty was appointed a midshipman on July 4, 1821, and was advanced to passed midshipman on April 28, 1832. Prior to the Civil War, he served in the Pacific, Asiatic, Mediterranean, and African squadrons and saw action protecting a merchant ship near the island of Sumatra. He was promoted to lieutenant on September 6, 1837, and to commander on January 6, 1859. During the Civil War, Kilty commanded the ironclad Mound City during operations against Island Number 10 in April 1862, and against Fort Pillow, Tennessee, the following month. Shortly after the Battle of Memphis, Kilty led an expedition up the White River in Arkansas to support Union troops under Brigadier General Samuel Curtis. The flotilla was attacked by a masked battery at St. Charles, Arkansas, and in the ensuing fight on June 17, 1862, a shell penetrated the Mound City and exploded, destroying the steel drum boiler. Kilty received a severe wound that required the amputation of his left hand. Altogether 80 men were scalded to death, and 43 others drowned or were shot. Kilty remained in the service on his recovery and was promoted to captain on July 16, 1862. Kilty was advanced to rear admiral on July 13, 1870. He died in Baltimore, Maryland, on November 10, 1879. Gary D. Joiner See also Amphibious Warfare; Cairo-Class River Ironclads; Eads, James Buchanan; Foote, Andrew Hull; Fort Pillow, Tennessee; Ironclads, Union; Island Number 10, Battle of;

340 |â•‡ Kilty, Augustus H. Â�Memphis, First Battle of; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Mound City, USS; Plum Point Bend, Battle of; Riverine Warfare; White River Expedition, U.S. Navy

References Joiner, Gary D. Mr. Lincoln’s Brown Water Navy: The Mississippi Squadron. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007. Shea, William L., and Terrence J. Winschel. Vicksburg Is the Key: The Struggle for the Mississippi River. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003.

L Laird Rams In June 1862 James D. Bulloch, the Confederate agent in Britain, arranged with the firm of John Laird and Sons to build two armored ships. More suited to Confederate requirements, they were known in the yard as hulls 294 and 295 but became best known as the Laird Rams. Their intended names in Confederate service were the Mississippi and North Carolina. The North Carolina was launched on July 4, 1863, and the Mississippi on August 29, 1863. The two ships were 224 feet, 6 inches, in length between perpendiculars and 42 feet, 6 inches, in beam. They had a depth of 17 feet. They were designed to mount four 9-inch rifled guns in two rotating iron turrets. Each was also equipped with a 7-foot iron ram at the bow. The ships were protected by midships hull armor of 4.5 inches supported by 12 inches of teak, with an inner 0.625-inch iron belt. The turrets had 5.5 inches of iron protection, also supported by 12 inches of teak. A single screw powered by four steam boilers and auxiliary sail were to provide 10-knot speed. Crew complement was 153 men. Bulloch did all he could to conceal the true nature of the ships, putting out the cover story that they had been ordered by the Egyptian government as the El Toussan and El Monassir. U.S. agents were not fooled, and heavy pressure on London by Washington, assisted by changing Southern military fortunes in the summer of 1863, led the British government to seize both ships in the Mersey River that October. In February 1864 the government purchased them for the Royal Navy. The North Carolina became the Scorpion, and the Mississippi was named the Wivern. The Scorpion became a coast-defense ship in Bermuda and was sunk as a target in 1901. The Wivern became a coast-defense ship at Hong Kong; in 1904 it became a floating workshop and depot ship, and in 1922 it was broken up. Spencer C. Tucker See also Adams, Charles Francis, Sr.; Alabama Claims; Bulloch, James Dunwody; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Ironclads, Confederate; Peterhoff Crisis; Strategy, Confederate Naval; Trent Affair

References Bulloch, James Dunwody. The Secret Service of the Confederate States in Europe, or How the Confederate Cruisers Were Equipped. New York: Modern Library, 2001. Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. 341

342 |â•‡ Lanman, Joseph

Lanman, Joseph Birth Date: July 11, 1811 Death Date: March 13, 1874 U.S. Navy officer. Joseph Lanman was born in Norwich, Connecticut, on July 11, 1811. Lanman received a midshipman’s warrant on January 1, 1825. He was promoted to passed midshipman on June 4, 1831; to lieutenant on March 3, 1834; and to commander on September 14, 1855. At the beginning of 1861, Lanman had served in the navy for 36 years: 16 years in assignments afloat, 12 years in shore duty, and 7 years awaiting orders in a navy that had too many officers for available assignments. Commanding the steamer Michigan on the Great Lakes in early 1861, Lanman was assigned to ordnance duty that April at the Mare Island Navy Yard in California. In February 1862 Lanman took command of the steam sloop Saranac in the Pacific Squadron. Promoted to captain effective July 16, 1862, he was promoted to commodore on August 29. He continued in the Pacific Squadron as the commander of the steam sloop Lancaster until August 1864, when he was assigned to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron as commander of the steam frigate Minnesota. In charge of the Second Division of ships, Lanman commanded the Minnesota in the two Union attacks on Fort Fisher, North Carolina, on December 24–27, 1864, and January 13–17, 1865. Then ordered to Hampton Roads as senior officer there, Landman sailed the Minnesota to the Portsmouth Navy Yard on February 2, 1865. He ended the war there, awaiting orders. Following the end of the Civil War, Lanman commanded the navy’s Atlantic Squadron during October 1865–November 1866. He was commandant of the Portsmouth Navy Yard in New Hampshire during October 1867–May 1869. Promoted to rear admiral on December 8, 1867, Lanman ended his naval career as commander of the South Atlantic Squadron during 1869–1872. He retired from the navy on July 18, 1872, and died in Norwich, Connecticut, on March 13, 1874. Spencer C. Tucker See also Fort Fisher Campaign; Hampton Roads, Virginia; Mare Island Navy Yard; Minnesota, USS; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Portsmouth Navy Yard


Lardner, James Lawrenceâ•‡ | 343

Lardner, James Lawrence Birth Date: November 20, 1802 Death Date: April 12, 1881 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on November 20, 1802, James Lawrence Lardner received a midshipman’s warrant on May 20, 1820. He was promoted to lieutenant on May 17, 1828, and to commander on November 21, 1851. In early 1861, assigned to the Philadelphia Navy Yard, Lardner had been in the navy for 40 years: approximately 18 years in service at sea, 5 years in shore assignments, and 16 years awaiting orders in a navy that had too many officers for available billets. Promoted to captain on May 19, 1861, a month after the start of the Civil War, Lardner remained in his assignment at the Philadelphia Navy Yard until September, when he was ordered to take command of the steam sloop Susquehanna in the Atlantic Blockading Squadron at Hatteras Inlet, North Carolina. Within a month he was ordered first to join the blockade off Beaufort, North Carolina, then to assume command of the blockade off Charleston, South Carolina. In early November he played a major role in the Union victory in the Battle of Port Royal Sound, South Carolina (November 5–7, 1861). From late January to the end of March 1862, Lardner commanded at Port Royal in the absence of Flag Officer Samuel F. Du Pont. On Du Pont’s return, Lardner resumed his station off Charleston. On May 19, 1862, Lardner was ordered to assume command of the East Gulf Blockading Squadron. He took up that command officially on June 4. He was promoted to the rank of commodore effective July 16, and in September he was promoted to acting rear admiral backdated to July 16. Lardner was relieved of his command for reasons of health on December 9, 1862, by Acting Rear Admiral Theodorus Bailey. Reverting to his permanent rank of commodore, Lardner went on sick leave until June 1, 1863, when he was again appointed acting rear admiral and replaced Acting Rear Admiral Charles Wilkes in command of the West India Squadron. He took up that command on June 20, 1863, and remained in command until October 3, 1864, when the squadron was officially disbanded and Lardner reverted to his permanent rank of commodore. Transferred to the retired list on November 20, 1864, Lardner was assigned to the Philadelphia Navy Yard for the remainder of the war. Lardner served on various boards during 1865–1866 and was promoted to rear admiral on the retired list effective July 25, 1866. He again held board duties in 1869 until he was appointed to a three-year term as governor of the Philadelphia Naval Asylum in June 1869. Lardner died in Philadelphia on April 12, 1881. Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Bailey, Theodorus; Charleston, South Carolina; Du Pont, Samuel Francis; East Gulf Blockading Squadron; Gulf of

344 |â•‡ Lavallette, Elie Augustus Frederick Mexico; Philadelphia Naval Asylum; Philadelphia Navy Yard; Port Royal Sound, Battle of; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Wilkes, Charles


Lavallette, Elie Augustus Frederick Birth Date: May 3, 1790 Death Date: November 18, 1862 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Alexandria, Virginia, into a family of French origin on May 3, 1790, Elie Augustus Frederick La Vallette was the son of a U.S. Navy chaplain. He sailed with his father at age 10 on a cruise in the frigate Constitution. Following several merchant-marine cruises, La Vallette received an appointment as a sailing master in the navy on June 25, 1812, during the War of 1812. La Vallette distinguished himself as acting lieutenant in the sloop Saratoga, Commodore Thomas Macdonough’s flagship, during the Battle of Lake Champlain (September 11, 1814). He was promoted to lieutenant on December 9, 1814, and then assumed command of the schooner Dispatch in the U.S. Coast Survey. Following other assignments, he was in the frigate Constitution during 1824–1828, and on several occasions exercised command of that ship. In 1830 La Vallette changed the spelling of his name to the more Americanized Lavallette. He was promoted to master commandant on March 3, 1831, and in 1833 he commanded the sloop USS Fairfield off Ecuador. Lavallette was promoted to captain on February 23, 1840. At the beginning of the Mexican-American War (1846–1848), Lavallette commanded the razee frigate Independence. He sailed from Boston on August 22, 1846, to join Commodore John D. Sloat’s Pacific Squadron. In August 1847, in command of the frigate USS Congress, he was ordered to proceed to Cape San Lucas, Mexico, with his own ship and the sloops Portsmouth and Dale, with the mission of commerce destruction. Lavallette took possession of the Mexican port of Guaymas on October 20. On November 11 he led an American delegation ashore at the most important Mexican west coast port of Mazatlán and secured the surrender of that place as well. Commodore William Bradford Shubrick then appointed Lavallette the military governor of Mazatlán and gave him command there of a 400-man garrison, consisting of the crew of the Congress. By February 1848 he and his men had completed fortifications at Mazatlán that would enable them to withstand any attack the Mexicans could launch. With the end of the war,

Lee, Samuel Phillipsâ•‡ | 345

Lavallette turned back control of Mazatlán to the Mexican government on June 17, 1848. Lavallette served as commander of the Africa Squadron in 1851, and he subsequently commanded the East India Squadron and the Mediterranean Squadron. At the beginning of 1861, Lavallette had served in the navy for 48 years: some 19 years of service at sea, 12 years in assignments ashore, and 16 years awaiting orders in a navy that had too many officers for billets available. In early 1861 Lavallette was assigned command of the naval station at Sackets Harbor, New York, and he remained there into 1862. He also served on board duty until August 1862. On July 16, 1862, Lavallette was commissioned a rear admiral on the retired list. Lavallette died at Philadelphia on November 18, 1862. Lavallette, New Jersey, is named in his honor. Two U.S. destroyers subsequently named for him retained the French spelling of his name. Spencer C. Tucker See also Coast Survey, U.S.; Sackets Harbor Naval Station


Lee, Samuel Phillips Birth Date: February 12, 1812 Death Date: June 5, 1897 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Fairfax County, Virginia, on February 12, 1812, Samuel Phillips Lee came from a distinguished Virginia family. His grandfather, Richard Henry Lee, was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, as was his granduncle, Francis Lightfoot Lee. Samuel Lee was also the third cousin of Sidney S. Lee, a commander in the U.S. Navy and later a captain in the Confederate Navy, and Robert E. Lee, a general in the Confederate Army. Lee received a midshipman’s warrant on November 22, 1825. He was promoted to passed midshipman on June 4, 1831; to lieutenant on February 9, 1837; and to commander on September 14, 1855. At the beginning of 1861, Lee was commanding the sloop Vandalia in the East India Squadron. He then had spent 15 years in sea service, 7 years in assignments ashore, and 12 years awaiting assignment in a navy that had too many officers.

346 |â•‡ Lee, Samuel Phillips

Ordered back to the United States at the start of the Civil War, Lee remained loyal to the United States, unlike so many of his relatives, who supported the Confederacy. On May 20, 1861, Lee joined the West India Squadron at Hampton Roads, but on May 31 he and the Vandalia were assigned to Flag Officer Silas H. Stringham’s Atlantic Blockading Squadron and stationed off Charleston, South Carolina. When the Atlantic Blockading Squadron was divided into north and south squadrons, Lee was to have been assigned to the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron under Flag Officer Francis H. Du Pont, but, acting under previous orders, was assigned to Washington, D.C. In January 1862, Lee took command of the screw sloop USS Oneida in the Gulf Blockading Squadron. When that squadron was divided into two in February 1862, he was assigned to the West Gulf Blockading Squadron commanded by Flag Officer David G. Farragut. Lee and the Oneida then participated in the passage of Forts St. Philip and Jackson and the capture of New Orleans that April. Promoted to captain on July 16, 1862, Lee relieved Rear Admiral Louis M. Goldsborough as commander of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron on September 1 as acting rear admiral. On July 14, 1863, Lee led a squadron of eight gunboats in the capture of Fort Powhatan on the James River in Virginia. In early July 1864, Lee approved Lieutenant William B. Cushing’s plan to destroy the Confederate ironclad Albemarle with a spar torpedo, which was accomplished that October. In early September 1864, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles named Farragut to replace Lee in command of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, but Farragut had already written to request leave for health reasons, and Welles settled on Rear Admiral David D. Porter instead. Porter relieved Lee on October 12. Lee had earlier assumed command of the West Gulf Blockading Squadron, but when Porter had to replace Farragut in command of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, Lee was shifted on October 21 to Porter’s former position as commander of the Mississippi Squadron. He took up that post at Mound City, Illinois, on November 1 and held it until the Mississippi Squadron was discontinued on August 14, 1865. Lee then reverted to his permanent rank of captain. Awaiting orders for the next year, Lee was promoted to commodore on July 25, 1866. Following service on boards and in staff positions, Lee was promoted to rear admiral on April 22, 1870. That August, Lee assumed command of the North Atlantic Squadron. He held that position until August 1872. Placed on the retired list on February 13, 1873, Lee died in Silver Spring, Maryland, on June 5, 1897. Spencer C. Tucker See also Albemarle, CSS; Albemarle, CSS, Destruction of; Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Blockade of the Confederacy; Charleston, South Carolina; Cushing, William Barker; Du Pont, Samuel Francis; Farragut, David Glasgow; Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s Run Past; Goldsborough, Louis Malesherbes; Gulf Blockading Squadron; James River; Lee, Sidney Smith; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; New Orleans, Louisiana,

Lee, Sidney Smithâ•‡ | 347

Union Capture of; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Porter, David Dixon; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Stringham, Silas Horton; Welles, Gideon; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Cornish, Dudley T. “Lincoln’s Lee: Samuel Phillips Lee and the Tightening of Anaconda’s Coils.” In New Aspects of Naval History: Selected Papers from the Fifth Naval History Symposium, edited by Department of History, U.S. Naval Academy, 137–144. Baltimore: Nautical and Aviation Publishing, 1985. Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001. U.S. Navy Department, Naval History Division. Civil War Naval Chronology, 1861– 1865. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971.

Lee, Sidney Smith Birth Date: September 2, 1802 Death Date: July 22, 1869 Confederate Navy officer. Sidney Smith Lee was the older brother of Confederate Army general Robert E. Lee. Born at Stratford Plantation, Westmoreland County, Virginia, on September 2, 1802, Sidney Smith Lee was the third child of Henry “Lighthorse Harry” Lee of Revolutionary War fame. Lee received a midshipman’s warrant in the U.S. Navy on December 30, 1820. He was promoted to lieutenant on May 17, 1828. During the Mexican-American War, he took part in the landing and siege of Veracruz, commanding a shell gun landed from the side-wheel steamer Mississippi. Promoted to commander on June 4, 1850, he sailed to Japan with Commodore Matthew C. Perry in 1853, commanding the flagship Mississippi. Lee was one of the early commandants of midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. He then commanded the Philadelphia Navy Yard. His last assignment in the U.S. Navy was with the U.S. Coast Survey. Commander Lee submitted his resignation from the U.S. Navy on April 17, 1861, the same day Virginia seceded from the Union. As was practice by this date, his resignation was not accepted and he was instead dismissed on April 22, 1861. Lee briefly served in the Virginia Navy before securing a commission as a commander in the Confederate Navy on June 21 to rank from March 26, 1861. Assigned to the Bureau of Ordnance and Hydrography, in 1862 Lee assumed command of the Norfolk (Gosport) Navy Yard. After Union forces took possession of the yard, Lee was assigned command of Confederate Navy personnel and defenses at Drewry’s Bluff, Virginia, a few miles east of Richmond on the James River. Ordered to assume command there the very day of the First Battle of Drewry’s

348 |â•‡ Lenthall, John

Bluff on May 15, 1862, he did not take over from Commander Ebenezer Farrand until several days afterward. He was promoted to captain on October 23, 1862, to rank from February 8, 1862. On May 6, 1864, Lee became chief of the Confederate Navy’s Bureau of Orders and Details, replacing Flag Officer John K. Mitchell. Lee held this post until the end of the war. Following the Confederate evacuation of Richmond in early April 1865, Lee went to Greensboro, North Carolina, where he was paroled on April 28. Lee died at Richland, Stafford County, Virginia, on July 22, 1869. His son FitzÂ� hugh Lee became a Confederate major general and then governor of Virginia, and he was later major general of volunteers during the Spanish-American War. Spencer C. Tucker See also Coast Survey, U.S.; Drewry’s Bluff, First Battle of; Farrand, Ebenezer; James River; Lee, Samuel Phillips; Mississippi, USS; Mitchell, John Kirkwood; Naval Academy, United States; Norfolk Navy Yard; Philadelphia Navy Yard; Richmond, Virginia

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Coski, John M. Capital Navy: The Men, Ships and Operations of the James River Squadron. Campbell, CA: Savas, 1996. Morison, Samuel Eliot. “Old Bruin” Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry. Boston: Little, Brown, 1967. Register of Officers of the Confederate States Navy, 1861–1865: As Compiled and Revised by the Office of Naval Records and Library, United States Navy Department, 1931, from All Available Data. With a new introduction by John M. Carroll. Mattituck, NY: J. M. Carroll, 1981. [Originally published by the Naval Record and Library, U.S. Navy Department, in 1898 and revised in 1931.] Still, William N., Jr., ed. The Confederate Navy: The Ships, Men and Organization, 1861–65. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997. U.S. Navy Department, Naval History Division. Civil War Naval Chronology, 1861– 1865. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971.

Lenthall, John Birth Date: September 16, 1807 Death Date: April 15, 1882 European-trained U.S. naval officer and architect. John Lenthall was born on September 16, 1807, in Washington, D.C. His British father was accidentally killed while working on the construction of the U.S. Capitol under famed architect Benjamin Latrobe. Lenthall entered the U.S. Navy on May 1, 1835, and was appointed chief naval constructor in 1849. Appointed chief of the Bureau of Construction and Repair in 1853, he held that position until his retirement in 1871.

Letters of Marque and Reprisalâ•‡ | 349

Lenthall was responsible for the design of the U.S. Navy’s preeminent antebellum ships. These wooden, screw-propelled steam frigates, such as the Merrimack, which would be converted into the Confederate ironclad Virginia, and USS Roanoke, which would be converted into an ironclad with three turrets, were the pride of the navy. At the beginning of the Civil War, the U.S. War Department sought warships capable of operating in the shallow western rivers, and Lenthall was promptly consulted. Lenthall, whose experiences lay with deep-water ships, was skeptical that the shallow-draft boats could house all of the machinery required for steam propulsion, but provided a premature design of a craft measuring 170 feet long, 28 feet wide, and 5 feet deep. His blueprint, which did not include armor, was passed on to his subordinate, naval constructor Samuel Pook. Pook and James Buchanan Eads, a western river engineer, modified Lenthall’s design to form the seven Cairoclass (City-class) ironclads. These ships constituted the nucleus of the U.S. Navy’s Western Gunboat Flotilla, which became the Mississippi Squadron. Lenthall went on to design the revolutionary ironclad Dunderberg, a deep-water ram that, because of construction problems, would not see action in the war. It was ultimately purchased by France to prevent it from falling into the hands of Prussia. Following his retirement, Lenthall served as a member of an advisory board on new ship construction, helping pave the way for the modern steel navy. He died on April 15, 1882, in Washington, D.C. William E. Whyte III See also Cairo-Class River Ironclads; Dunderberg, USS; Eads, James Buchanan; Ericsson, John; Ironclad Board, U.S. Navy; Ironclads, Union; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Roanoke, USS; Virginia, CSS; Welles, Gideon

References Milligan, John D. “From Theory to Application: The Emergence of the American Ironclad War Vessel.” Military Affairs 48 (July 1984): 126–132. Roberts, William H. Civil War Ironclads: The U.S. Navy and Industrial Mobilization. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.

Letters of Marque and Reprisal Privateers’ commissions, issued during the last few centuries of fighting sail by maritime governments to supplement the forces of their regular navies. The words “marque” and “reprisal” have both been archaic for centuries, but the term has lingered on in many important documents, including the U.S. Constitution. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the most successful privateers were usually designed for that purpose. They were sleek, fast, and maneuverable, with little

350 |â•‡ Lexington, USS

cargo space but heavily armed and with fore-and-aft rigs to help them pursue their prey and escape their predators. Their crews were rewarded only from the proceeds of prizes. Other privateers were simply merchantmen engaged in the carrying trade, with abundant cargo space and small crews, who took few prizes in the course of their commercial voyages. Their crews were paid regular wages. Confusingly, the latter were referred to as “letters of marque.” During the Civil War, the Confederate government authorized privateers. On May 6, 1861, President Jefferson Davis signed into law a bill passed by the Confederate Congress that recognized a state of war with the United States and established regulations for “letters of marque, prizes, and prize goods.” U.S. president Abraham Lincoln’s threat to treat all captured privateers as pirates did not deter applications for letters of marque in the Confederacy, with the first coming in the day after Davis’s invitation. On May 10, the same day the regulations were published, the Confederate government granted the first commission to the 30-ton schooner Triton of Brunswick, Georgia. In all, the government issued letters of marque and reprisal to 52 privateers during the war, which however accomplished little. Donald A. Petrie and Spencer C. Tucker See also Alabama Claims; Blockade Board; Blockade of the Confederacy; Blockade-Â� Runners; Bulloch, James Dunwody; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Davis, Jefferson Finis; Enchantress Affair; Guerre de Course; Lincoln, Abraham; Mallory, Stephen Russell; Privateers; Prize Cases; Strategy, Confederate Naval

References Petrie, Donald A. The Prize Game: Lawful Looting on the High Seas in the Days of Fighting Sail. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1999. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Lexington, USS One of the first three side-wheel timberclad gunboats built for use on western waters during the Civil War. The Lexington was one of the most traveled gunboats on inland waters during the war. Purchased by Commander John Rodgers in 1861 and converted into warships, the Lexington, Tyler, and Conestoga formed the nucleus of the Western Gunboat Flotilla and received additional wood protection against small-arms fire. The Lexington was 177 feet, 7 inches in length; 36 feet, 10 inches in beam; and 6 feet in draft. It displaced 455 tons. It was capable of seven knots and was armed with four 8-inch smoothbore and two 32-pounder guns. During 1862, the Lexington supported Union ground actions at Belmont, Missouri (November 7, 1861), and Columbus, Kentucky, before distinguishing itself at Fort Henry (February 6, 1862) and particularly in the Battle of Shiloh (April 6–7, 1862). Later that year, the Lexington participated in the White River Expedition in

Lincoln, Abrahamâ•‡ | 351

Arkansas and in the Yazoo Pass Expedition in Mississippi. During 1863, the Lexington assisted in the capture of Fort Hindman (January 9–11, 1863) and participated in antiguerrilla missions on the White River and the Cumberland River. It also supported Union troops at the Battle of Milliken’s Bend above Lake Providence, Louisiana. The Lexington again distinguished itself during the Red River Campaign in Louisiana (March 10–May 22, 1864). The ship was decommissioned at Mound City, Illinois, on July 2, 1865, and sold to private operators in August 1865. Gary D. Joiner See also Amphibious Warfare; Belmont, Battle of; Cairo-Class River Ironclads; Conestoga, USS; Cumberland River; Foote, Andrew Hull; Fort Henry, Battle of; Fort Hindman, Battle of; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Phelps, Seth Ledyard; Phelps’s Raid; Pittsburg Landing; Red River; Red River Campaign; Riverine Warfare; Rodgers, John; Shirk, James W.; Timberclads; Tyler, USS; Vicksburg Campaign; White River Expedition, U.S. Navy; Yazoo Pass Expedition; Yazoo River

References Joiner, Gary D. Mr. Lincoln’s Brown Water Navy: The Mississippi Squadron. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007. Shea, William L., and Terrence J. Winschel. Vicksburg Is the Key: The Struggle for the Mississippi River. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003. Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. Smith, Myron J., Jr. The Timberclads in the Civil War: The Lexington, Conestoga and Tyler on the Western Waters. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008.

Lincoln, Abraham Birth Date: February 12, 1809 Death Date: April 15, 1865 U.S. congressman and president of the United States (1861–1865). Abraham Lincoln was born near Hodgenville, Kentucky, on February 12, 1809, to an impoverished family; his family moved to Indiana when he was seven years old. His formal education was limited to a few months in a one-teacher schoolhouse, but he was an avid reader who devoured books at a young age. Sustaining himself with manuallabor jobs, he moved to New Salem, Illinois, where he became a shopkeeper and postmaster. Lincoln entered politics in 1834 when he was elected on the Whig ticket to the state assembly. He also began to read for the law and was licensed to practice in 1836. He finally settled in Springfield, Illinois, and established a law practice there. Lincoln was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1847, serving just one term during which he made his antislavery position well known; he also opposed the Mexican-American War.

352 |â•‡ Lincoln, Abraham

Now as a Republican, Lincoln ran for the U.S. Senate against Democrat Stephen Douglas in 1858. He lost that race to Douglas but garnered much attention during the Lincoln-Douglas Debates concerning slavery in the territories. In 1860, the Republican Party turned to Lincoln as its standard bearer in the 1860 presidential election. When the Democratic Party split, running two separate candidates against Lincoln, Lincoln was assured victory, which in turn virtually assured the sectional crisis that would lead to war. In 1861 when Lincoln took office, his only military experience had come during a few weeks as the captain of an Illinois militia company during the During the Civil War U.S. President Â�Abraham Black Hawk War in which he had seen Lincoln devoted most of his time spent on no combat. military affairs to the army. Although he Although Lincoln’s presidency was relied heavily on able Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, Lincoln did not hesitate to entirely subsumed by the war, he did occasionally assert himself in strategic, prove to be an adept foreign policy tactical, and personnel matters regarding the maker, managing to keep the peace navy. (Library of Congress) with Great Britain in the uproar following the Trent Affair and courting international goodwill with the Emancipation Proclamation. As an orator, he was perhaps second to no other president, and he skillfully used his talent to prosecute the war effort and rally the American people. Little of great note was accomplished in domestic affairs during his tenure, although Lincoln’s administration was influential in the passage of the 1862 Homestead Act. Above all, Lincoln believed that only the unrelenting prosecution of the war would end the bloodshed and restore the Union, and his dedication to this never wavered, even in the face of staggering battlefield casualties and dogged political opposition, including from those in his own cabinet. When the Civil War began in April 1861, Lincoln depended on the advice of the army’s aged ranking general, Lieutenant General Winfield Scott, who called for applying external pressure to the Confederacy in the form of a naval blockade while large Union armies were being trained and could then invade the South and bisect it along its great rivers. Understandably, Lincoln devoted most of his time on military matters to the army, considered to be the key to a possible Union victory. The navy also involved

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far fewer men than the army. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles and his able assistant, Gustavus V. Fox, directed the naval effort largely on their own, determining strategy and selecting key commanders. Lincoln nonetheless was well informed about naval developments and had a keen interest in them. As commander in chief, Lincoln had final say in selection of squadron commanders but almost always went along with Welles’s recommendations. The notable exception is when he prevailed on Welles to appoint his friend Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren—whom Welles opposed—to replace Rear Admiral Samuel F. Du Pont as commander of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron in 1863. Lincoln also pressed Welles to find Captains Charles Wilkes and David D. Porter responsible commands, but because he sought to take advantage of their perceived abilities rather than any political or personal reason. It should be noted that, unlike the case with the army, there was no commissioning of prominent politicians in the navy. All the squadron commanders were professional officers with long years of service. Lincoln’s most notable interference in naval strategy may have been his unfortunate support of the Red River Campaign of 1864, which was undertaken in part to secure that region’s cotton for the textile mills of the northeast and solidify the presidential election of that November. This joint army-navy campaign turned out to be a major military fiasco. By the end of the war, Lincoln, who had difficulty finding the right commander for the Union field armies, had found his man in Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant and had himself become a highly effective commander in chief. On April 14, 1865, two days after General Robert E. Lee surrendered the principal Confederate field force, the Army of Northern Virginia, at Appomattox, Lincoln was shot at close range by Southern sympathizer John Wilkes Booth while the president enjoyed a theatrical production at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. He died of a bullet wound to the head the following morning. Lincoln’s death greatly complicated the already difficult process of Reconstruction. Steven E. Woodworth See also Anaconda Strategy; Blockade of the Confederacy; Dahlgren, John Adolph Bernard; Davis, Jefferson Finis; Du Pont, Samuel Francis; Fox, Gustavus Vasa; Goldsborough, Louis Malesherbes; Mortar Boats; Navy, U.S.; Porter, David Dixon; Red River Campaign; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Strategy, Union Naval; Trent Affair; Washington Navy Yard; Welles, Gideon; Wilkes, Charles

References Donald, David Herbert. Lincoln. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995. Hattaway, Herman, and Archer Jones. How the North Won: A Military History of the Civil War. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991. Symonds, Craig L. Lincoln and His Admirals. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Taaffe, Stephen R. Commanding Lincoln’s Navy: Union Naval Leadership during the Civil War. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2009.

354 |â•‡ Livingston, John William

Livingston, John William Birth Date: May 22, 1804 Death Date: September 10, 1886 U.S. Navy officer. Born John William Turk in New York City on May 22, 1804, Turk subsequently changed his last name to his mother’s maiden name of Livingston. He received a midshipman’s warrant in the U.S. Navy on March 4, 1823. Livingston was promoted to passed midshipman on March 23, 1829; to lieutenant on June 21, 1832; and to commander on May 24, 1855. At the beginning of 1861, Livingston had been in the navy for 37 years: 15 years of service at sea, 7 years in assignments ashore, and 15 years awaiting orders in a navy that had too many officers for available assignments. Ordered to the Norfolk (Gosport) Navy Yard shortly before the withdrawal of Union forces from that place on April 20, 1861, he was reassigned to command the screw steamer USS Penguin in the Atlantic Blockading Squadron at Hampton Roads, Virginia, and then to the Potomac Flotilla that August. With the Penguin judged unseaworthy, in September Livingston assumed command of the converted side-wheel steamer Bienville at New York, which joined the navy the next month and was assigned to the Atlantic Blockading Squadron. Shortly thereafter, Livingston took command of the sailing sloop Cumberland in the James River Squadron, but he left that ship in February 1862 (before its destruction the next month by CSS Virginia). Following the recapture by Union forces of the Norfolk Navy Yard on May 10, 1862, Livingston assumed command of that facility and oversaw the effort to restore its working capacity following the destruction of most of its facilities by the withdrawing Confederates. He held this command until November 1864 and was promoted to commodore on July 16, 1862. From November 1864 until the end of 1865, Livingston commanded the naval station at Mound City, Illinois. Although placed on the retired list on May 22, 1866, Livingston was on board duty into 1867. He was commissioned a rear admiral in 1876 with date of rank from May 26, 1868. Livingston died on September 10, 1886, in New York City. Spencer C. Tucker See also Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Flotilla; Hampton Roads, Virginia; James River; Mound City Naval Station; Norfolk Navy Yard; Potomac Flotilla; Virginia, CSS


Lockwood, Henry Hayesâ•‡ | 355

Lockwood, Henry Hayes Birth Date: August 17, 1814 Death Date: December 7, 1899 U.S. Navy and U.S. Army officer. Born in Kent County, Delaware, on August 17, 1814, Henry Hayes Lockwood received an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, in 1836 and was commissioned a brevet second lieutenant in the 2nd Artillery Regiment upon graduation on July 1, 1836. Promoted to second lieutenant on July 30, 1836, Lockwood fought in the Second Seminole War (1835–1842). Resigning his commission on September 12, 1837, Livingston spent the next four years farming in Delaware. On November 4, 1841, he was appointed professor of mathematics in the U.S. Navy. “Professor” was a term reserved for any naval instructor either aboard ship or in the various naval yards. After service at sea during the 1846–1848 Mexican-American War and a brief assignment at the Philadelphia Naval Asylum, Lockwood was assigned to the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, as professor of natural and experimental philosophy (then the name for physics). In 1851 he was designated professor of field artillery and tactics with the additional title of professor of astronomy and gunnery. By the beginning of 1861, Lockwood had been in the navy for 19 years: 3 years of service at sea and 16 years ashore. With the start of the Civil War, Lockwood was placed “on duty with the army” and was commissioned a colonel in command of the 1st Delaware Infantry Regiment on May 25, 1861. On August 8, 1861, he was appointed a brigadier general of volunteers, the first navy officer to be commissioned a general officer in the army. Stationed in Virginia, Lockwood commanded the prison at Point Lookout and the Union defenses of the lower Potomac River. While still serving in the army, on March 3, 1863, Lockwood was advanced to the relative rank of commander in the navy. His first combat came in the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), where he led a brigade of XII Corps in the Army of the Potomac. His brigade was then assigned garrison duty near Harpers Ferry for five months before Lockwood was assigned in December 1863 to command the Middle Department at Baltimore, Maryland. He rejoined the Army of the Potomac in April 1864 and commanded a division of V Corps in the Battle of Cold Harbor (May 31–June 12, 1864). Afterward he was again assigned to the Middle Department and commanded a collection of units that rushed to the defense of Washington during Confederate lieutenant general Jubal A. Early’s raid that reached the outskirts of the U.S. capital in late July. Mustering out of the army in August 1865, Lockwood returned to the Naval Academy where he resumed his teaching. In 1870 he was assigned to the Naval Observatory in Washington until his retirement on August 16, 1876. He was promoted to the relative rank of captain in the navy on May 31, 1872, and in 1882, as a retired professor, his relative rank was upgraded to commodore. He therefore

356 |â•‡ Louisiana, CSS

joined Major General/Rear Admiral Samuel P. Carter as one of two naval officers to reach flag rank in both the army and the navy. Rear Admiral Raphael Semmes was the only individual to achieve that same distinction in Confederate service. Lockwood died in Georgetown in the District of Columbia on December 7, 1899. Spencer C. Tucker See also Carter, Samuel Powhatan; Naval Academy, United States; Philadelphia Naval Asylum; Potomac River; Semmes, Raphael


Louisiana, CSS Confederate center-wheeler/screw steamer ironclad. The Louisiana was built at Jefferson City, Louisiana, just north of New Orleans, by E. C. Murray. The ironclad was laid down on October 15, 1861, and launched on February 6, 1862, but lack of materials prevented its completion. The Louisiana was designed for four engines that would power two paddle wheels in a center well and two screw propellers with twin rudders. As with other Southern ironclads, it was casemated. The casemate extended the full length of the ship save about 25 feet at bow and stern end and was sloped at nearly 45 degrees on all four sides. Armor consisted of two thicknesses of two-inch railroad iron placed in two different directions, while the top of the ship had sheet iron bulwarks some 4 feet in height. The ship weighed 1,400 tons, was 364 feet long, and had a beam of 62 feet and draft of only 7 feet. The crew complement was some 300 men. The ship was pierced for five gun ports on each side and three each forward and aft. Armament consisted of two 7-inch rifled guns, three IX-inch Dahlgren smoothbore shell guns, four 8-inch smoothbore shell guns, and seven 32-pounders. On April 18, 1862, Commander David D. Porter’s mortar schooners in Flag Officer David G. Farragut’s West Gulf Coast Squadron commenced fire on Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip on the lower Mississippi River. This made it clear to Confederate authorities in New Orleans that Farragut would soon attempt to run the ships of his squadron past the forts in an effort to capture the city. Thus on April 20, although it was unready, the Confederates towed the Louisiana to Fort St. Philip. Captain J. J. Mitchell, commanding Confederate naval forces on the lower Mississippi, decided that the Louisiana would best be utilized as a floating battery and it was then moored along the eastern bank of the river about a half mile

Louisville, USSâ•‡ | 357

above Fort St. Philip, just beyond the range of Porter’s mortars. Commander C. F. McIntosh of the Confederate Navy had command. On April 24, as the Confederates had anticipated, Farragut ran his ships past Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip. The Louisiana would have posed a formidable threat had it been capable of maneuver and/or its guns capable of greater traverse, but it nonetheless inflicted damage. In its passage, the U.S. Navy screw sloop Iroquois closed to only a few feet of the Louisiana and let off a broadside, but this did no damage, while the Union ship suffered seriously from the Louisiana’s return fire. After Farragut’s squadron had passed upriver to New Orleans, McIntosh unbent every effort to get the ship’s engines in working order so that he could operate against the Union ships, but before this could be accomplished, the Confederate forts surrendered on April 28. Realizing that defeat was now inevitable and believing that he was not bound by the surrender of the army forts, McIntosh set fire to the Louisiana and sent it out in the river. Its guns went off as the flames reached them and then the whole ship blew up in a great explosion in front of Fort St. Philip. Farragut’s New Orleans campaign had come just in time, for had the Confederates been able to complete the Louisiana and Mississippi, Farragut would most likely not have made it to New Orleans in April 1862 and the Union capture of the Crescent City would have been a good while off. Spencer C. Tucker See also Farragut, David Glasgow; Floating Battery; Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s Run Past; Ironclads, Confederate; Mississippi, CSS; Mitchell, John Kirkwood; Mortar Boats; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; Porter, David Dixon; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. Still, William N., Jr. Iron Afloat: The Story of the Confederate Armorclads. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1985. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. II, Vol. 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1921. U.S. Navy Department, Naval History Division. Civil War Naval Chronology, 1861– 1865. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971.

Louisville, USS One of the seven Cairo- or City-class river ironclads built by James Buchanan Eads in the autumn of 1861. Commissioned on January 16, 1862, the Louisville displaced 512 tons, was 175 feet long, and had a beam of 51 feet, two inches and draft of only 6 feet.

358 |â•‡ Loyall, Benjamin Pollard

Known as a “Pook Turtle” for its armored casemate design by naval constructor Samuel Pook, the Louisville participated in the battles of Fort Donelson (February 12–16, 1862), Island Number 10 (March–April 1862), and Memphis (June 6, 1862). It participated in the engagement with CSS Arkansas in the Mississippi on July 15, 1862, and was subsequently engaged in operations up the Yazoo River and the capture of Fort Hindman (January 10–11, 1863) and the expedition to Steele’s Bayou that March. It ran past Vicksburg on April 16, 1863, and took part in the bombardment of Grand Gulf, Mississippi, on April 29. It then participated in the Red River Campaign (March 10–May 22, 1864). The Louisville was decommissioned on July 21, 1865, and sold on November 9. It was broken up the next year. William E. Whyte III See also Amphibious Warfare; Arkansas, CSS; Arkansas, CSS, Union Attempts to Destroy; Cairo-Class River Ironclads; Cumberland River; Davis, Charles Henry; Eads, James Buchanan; Foote, Andrew Hull; Fort Donelson, Battle of; Fort Hindman, Battle of; Grand Gulf, Mississippi, Union Shelling of; Ironclads, Union; Island Number 10, Battle of; Memphis, First Battle of; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Red River; Red River Campaign; Riverine Warfare; Steele’s Bayou Expedition; Tennessee River; Vicksburg Campaign; Yazoo River

References Joiner, Gary D. Mr. Lincoln’s Brown Water Navy: The Mississippi Squadron. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007. Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. Smith, Myron J., Jr. The Timberclads in the Civil War: The Lexington, Conestoga and Tyler on the Western Waters. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Loyall, Benjamin Pollard Birth Date: February 11, 1832 Death Date: January 24, 1923 Confederate Navy officer. Benjamin Pollard Loyall was born in Norfolk, Virginia, on February 11, 1832, and entered the U.S. Navy as a midshipman on March 5, 1849. He was promoted to passed midshipman on July 11, 1855; to master on September 16, 1855; and to lieutenant on January 28, 1856. Loyall attempted to resign his commission upon being offered a commission in the Confederate Navy but was dismissed on October 5, 1861. Accepting the Confederate commission, Loyall reported for duty at Norfolk (Gosport) Navy Yard in Virginia in late 1861. On January 9, 1862, Loyall was ordered to Roanoke Island, North Carolina. Receiving the provisional rank of captain, he was placed in command of artillery

Lynch, William Francisâ•‡ | 359

at Fort Bartow. When Roanoke Island fell on February 8, 1862, Loyall was taken prisoner. He was subsequently exchanged at Elizabeth City, North Carolina. In May 1863, Loyall was appointed commandant of midshipmen at the Confederate States Naval Academy on board the Patrick Henry, based at Drewry’s Bluff, Virginia. That October, Loyall was selected for an expedition led by Lieutenant Robert D. Minor to capture the U.S. Navy steamer Michigan on Lake Erie, but Union officials learned of the plot and alerted the Canadian government. Loyall was again called away from the Naval Academy by Commander John Taylor Wood to take part in the boat expedition that captured and scuttled the U.S. Navy coastal side-wheel combatant Underwriter in the Neuse River at New Bern, North Carolina, in February 1864. Loyall was second in command of the expedition and the first to board the Union ship. Loyall was then assigned to command the Confederate ironclad Neuse. In August, Joseph Price took over command of the ship, and Loyall returned to his duties in Virginia. Following the war, Loyall returned to Norfolk and worked as a grocer. He also served on the boards of the Norfolk Board of Health, Quarantine Board, and the Marine Bank of Norfolk. Loyall died in Norfolk on January 24, 1923. Andrew Duppstadt See also James River; Naval Academy, Confederate; Michigan, USS; Neuse, CSS; Norfolk Navy Yard; Price, Joseph; Roanoke Island, North Carolina, Union Capture of; Underwriter, USS, Confederate Expedition against; Wood, John Taylor

References Loyall, B. P. “Capture of the Underwriter, New Bern, 2 February 1864.” In Histories of Several Regiments and Battalions from North Carolina in the Great War, 1861–65, Vol. 5, edited by Walter Clark, 325–333. Raleigh, NC: E. M. Uzzell, Printer and Binder, 1901. Scharf, J. Thomas. History of the Confederate States Navy from Its Organization to the Surrender of Its Last Vessel. 1887; reprint, New York: Random House, 1996. Still, William N., Jr. Iron Afloat: The Story of the Confederate Armorclads. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1985.

Lucas Bend See Belmont, Battle of

Lynch, William Francis Birth Date: April 1, 1801 Death Date: October 17, 1865 Confederate Navy officer. Born in Norfolk, Virginia, on April 1, 1801, William Francis Lynch received a midshipman’s warrant on January 28, 1819. He first

360 |â•‡ Lynch, William Francis

saw service in the frigate Congress off South America and in the Pacific, when he developed an interest in exploration and the recording of scientific and biological data. In 1826, Lynch was assigned to the schooner Shark in the so-called Mosquito Squadron involved in the suppression of piracy in the West Indies. Lynch was promoted to lieutenant on May 17, 1828. Lynch’s first command was in 1830 with the Poinsett, a support vessel employed in Florida by the navy during the Second Seminole War (1836–1842). Following service in the Mexican-American War that included the U.S. capture of Veracruz, in 1847, Lynch, a staunch Christian, received permission to command an expedition to Palestine. In this its members transported overland by camel three specially made boats, which they used to survey the Jordan River and the Dead Sea. They also visited Jerusalem and other biblical sites. The expedition returned to New York City in December 1848 and the next year Lynch published a record of the expedition, Narrative of the US Expedition to the River Jordan and the Dead Sea (the U.S. Navy published a longer, official version in 1852). In 1851, Lynch also published Naval Life: Observations Afloat and on Shore. Promoted to commander on September 5, 1849, during 1852–1853 Lynch undertook an exploration for the navy of the West African coast. He was promoted to captain on April 2, 1856. With the beginning of the Civil War, Lynch resigned his commission on April 21, 1861. Initially appointed a captain in the Virginia Navy, on June 10 he was commissioned at the same rank in the Confederate States Navy. Lynch initially commanded shore batteries at Aquia Creek on the Potomac River in Virginia. In May these exchanged fire with Union gunboats in the Potomac. Lynch commanded the squadron of seven small gunboats mounting a total of only eight guns in the defense of Roanoke Island. Following the successful Union attack there on February 6, 1862, and unable to do more than to offer token long-range resistance, Lynch withdrew his squadron from Albemarle Sound up the Pasquotank River. On February 10, Lynch was caught by surprise by a Union expedition up the Pasquotank to Elizabeth City, when several of his ships were destroyed; Lynch was able to send several others up the Dismal Swamp Canal to Norfolk. Lynch next had charge of Confederate naval forces at Vicksburg, Mississippi, during March–October 1862. His last command during the war was of Confederate naval forces in North Carolina waters, and he thus took part in the defense of Fort Fisher during the Union assaults of December 1864 and January 1865. Paroled at the end of the war, Lynch died in Richmond, Virginia, on October 17, 1865. Spencer C. Tucker See also Albemarle Sound; Albemarle Sound, Battle of; Elizabeth City, Battle of; Fort Fisher Campaign; Mosquito Fleet; Port Royal Sound, Battle of; Potomac River; Riverine Warfare; Roanoke Island, North Carolina, Union Capture of; Vicksburg Campaign

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References Brinckloe, William Draper. “Seamen and Ships of the Desert: Two Forgotten Bits of Our Naval History.” United States Naval Institute Proceedings 58(9) (September 1932): 1333–1340. Hinds, John W. Invasion and Conquest of North Carolina: Anatomy of a Gunboat War. Shippensburg, PA: Burd Street Press, 1998. Robinson, Charles M., III. Hurricane of Fire: The Union Assault on Fort Fisher. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vols. 6 and 7. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1897–1898.


M Maffitt, John Newland Birth Date: February 22, 1819 Death Date: May 15, 1886 Confederate Navy officer. John Newland Maffitt was born at sea on February 22, 1819, to Irish immigrant parents. When his father became a Methodist minister, the family was in such poverty that at age 5, Maffitt was adopted by his uncle, Dr. William Maffitt, who lived near Fayetteville, North Carolina. Maffitt attended schools in Fayetteville and White Plains, New York. On February 23, 1832, at age 13, he secured a midshipman’s warrant in the U.S. Navy and embarked for a threeyear tour aboard the frigate USS Constitution. Having successfully completed his examinations, on June 23, 1838, he was promoted to passed midshipman. In 1842, Maffitt reported to the U.S. Coast Survey, where he was involved in hydrographic survey operations and received his commission as a lieutenant on June 25, 1843. Normally a temporary assignment for naval officers, Maffitt’s skills were so prized that he was retained by the U.S. Coast Survey. In May 1858, after nearly being forced into retirement by the navy, he was detached from the Coast Survey and returned to the sea as commander of the brig USS Dolphin assigned off Cuba in the interdiction of the illicit slave trade. On April 28, 1861, Maffitt resigned his commission in the U.S. Navy to enter Confederate service. He was commissioned a lieutenant in the Confederate States Navy on May 8, 1861, reporting to Commodore Josiah Tattnall at Savannah, Georgia, to command the gunboat Savannah. Following what Tattnall deemed a risky engagement with Union gunboats on November 6, 1861, Maffitt was suspended from command. He then served as naval aide to General Robert E. Lee. In April 1862, Maffitt was ordered to the civilian steamer Cecile to run supplies through the Union naval blockade to the Confederacy. He then took command of the British steamer Oreto at Nassau, which he commissioned off Green Cay Island in the Bahamas on August 17 as the Confederate cruiser Florida. Some of the crew contracted yellow fever and a number died. Maffitt put into Havana, and then in a daring move on September 4, sick and with only a skeleton crew, Maffitt sailed his ship past Union blockaders into Mobile Bay. The Florida had been badly damaged by Union fire, but with his ship repaired and a full crew, Maffitt got to sea, again escaping Union blockading warships, on the night of January 17, 1863. The Florida then cruised the North Atlantic with Maffitt taking 22 Union prizes. Maffitt was promoted to commander on April 29, 1863. In August, the Florida 363

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arrived at Brest, France, where Maffitt fell sick from the lingering effects of yellow fever. He gave up his command on February 12, 1864. Following his recuperation, he returned to the Confederacy in June 1864. Assigned command of the ironclad Albemarle on June 17, 1864, in September of that year he was reassigned to the British-owned blockade-runner Owl that had been seized by the Confederate government. With the war in its final stages, Maffitt made several successful trips through the blockade in the Owl in the first few months of 1865. With the end of the war, he sailed for England and turned the ship over to its owners on July 14, 1865. Maffitt remained in England for two years, passing the British naval examination and commanding a merchant steamer. Maffitt returned to North Carolina and settled on a farm near Wrightsville Beach in 1868. He died of Bright’s disease on May 15, 1886, in Wilmington, North Carolina. Andrew Duppstadt See also Alabama, CSS; Albemarle, CSS; Blockade of the Confederacy; Blockade-Â� Runners; Bulloch, James Dunwody; Coast Survey, U.S.; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Florida, CSS; Ironclads, Confederate; Mobile Bay; Semmes, Raphael; Strategy, Confederate Naval; Tattnall, Josiah; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Butler, Lindley S. Pirates, Privateers, and Rebel Raiders of the Carolina Coast. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000. McNeil, Jim. Masters of the Shoals: Tales of the Cape Fear Pilots Who Ran the Union Blockade. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2003. Owsley, Frank L., Jr. The C.S.S. Florida: Her Building and Operations. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1965. Register of Officers of the Confederate States Navy, 1861–1865: As Compiled and Revised by the Office of Naval Records and Library, United States Navy Department, 1931, from All Available Data. With a new introduction by John M. Carroll. Mattituck, NY: J. M. Carroll, 1981. [Originally published by the Naval Record and Library, U.S. Navy Department, in 1898 and revised in 1931.] Shingleton, Royce. High Seas Confederate: The Life and Times of John Newland Maffitt. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1994. Wise, Stephen R. Lifeline of the Confederacy: Blockade Running during the Civil War. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988.

Mahan, Alfred Thayer Birth Date: September 27, 1840 Death Date: December 1, 1914 Prominent naval historian and strategist; staunch proponent of U.S. imperialism. Born on September 27, 1840, at West Point, New York, Mahan was the son of U.S. Military Academy professor Dennis Hart Mahan, who initiated the study of military theory in the United States and exerted a profound impact on army officers in the Civil War.

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Mahan attended Columbia College for two years. Securing an appointment as an acting midshipman on September 30, 1856, he entered the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, graduating second in his class as a midshipman on June 9, 1859. He then served on the frigate Congress in the Brazil Squadron. During the Civil War, Mahan was posted with the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. He was promoted to lieutenant on August 31, 1861, and to lieutenant commander on June 7, 1865. He was advanced to commander on November 20, 1872. In 1883, Mahan published The Gulf and Inland Waters, a book treating U.S. Navy operations during the Civil War. This impressed Captain Stephen Luce, and in 1885, Luce, then president of the newly established Naval War College, invited Mahan there to lecture on naval tactics and history. Mahan was promoted to captain in September 1885. In 1890, Mahan published his lectures under the title The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783. This very important book is at once a history of British naval development in its most crucial period, a treatise on war at sea, and a ringing defense of a large navy. The book had particular influence in Britain, Germany, and Japan, but Mahan’s lectures and magazine articles on current strategic problems also won an ever-widening audience in the United States with such individuals as Theodore Roosevelt. Mahan argued that the United States needed a strong navy to compete for the world’s trade. He claimed there was no instance of a great commercial power retaining its leadership without a large navy. He also criticized traditional U.S. “single ship, commerce raiding” (the guerre de course), which could not win control of the seas. Mahan argued for a seagoing fleet, an overbearing force that could beat down an enemy’s battle line. Its strength had to be in battleships operating in squadrons. Mahan believed in the concentration of forces, urging that the fleet be kept in one ocean only. He also called for U.S. naval bases in the Caribbean and in the Pacific. Mahan had his shortcomings: he overlooked new technology, such as the torpedo and the submarine, and he was not concerned about speed in battleships. Mahan was president of the Naval War College twice (1886–1889 and 1889– 1893). He commanded the cruiser Chicago, flagship of the European station (1893–1896), and was publically feted in Europe and recognized with honorary degrees from Oxford and Cambridge. An important apostle of the new navalism, Mahan retired from the navy on November 17, 1896, to devote full time to writing. Mahan was called back to active duty with the navy in an advisory role during the 1898 Spanish-American War. He was a delegate to the 1899 Hague Peace Conference, and he was promoted to rear admiral on the retired list in 1906. Mahan wrote a dozen books on naval warfare and more than 50 articles in leading journals, and he was elected president of the American Historical Association in 1902. He died on December 1, 1914, in Washington, D.C. Spencer C. Tucker

366 |â•‡ Mallory, Stephen Russell See also Blockade of the Confederacy; Guerre de Course; Naval Academy, United States; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Hughes, Wayne P. Mahan: Tactics and Principles of Strategy. Newport, RI: Naval War College, 1990. Livezey, William E. Mahan and Sea Power. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1947. Puleston, William D. Mahan: The Life and Work of Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1939. Quester, George R. Mahan and American Naval Thought since 1914. Newport, RI: Naval War College, 1990. Reynolds, Clark G. Famous American Admirals. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1978. Seager, Robert. Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Man and His Letters. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1977.

Mallory, Stephen Russell Birth Date: ca. 1813 Death Date: November 9, 1873 Confederate secretary of the navy. Born on Trinidad Island, probably in 1813, Stephen R. Mallory moved to Key West, Florida, with his family in 1820. Two years later, his father died of tuberculosis. When he was 14 his mother sent him to the Moravian School for Boys in Nazareth, Pennsylvania. His three years there constituted his formal education. Mallory then assisted his mother in running a boarding house. In 1833, Mallory was appointed customs inspector at Key West. At about the same time, he read for the law with a local judge. Admitted to the bar before 1840, he specialized in maritime cases. During the 1836–1840 Seminole War, Mallory served as a volunteer aboard a gunboat. Then in 1845, President James K. Polk appointed him collector of customs at Key West. In 1851, the Florida legislature elected Mallory to the U.S. Senate. Throughout his years in the Senate, Mallory served on the Naval Affairs Committee. Winning reelection to the Senate in 1857, Mallory chaired the committee. He used this position to push for naval expansion and technical innovations. He also sought to reinstitute flogging, a move favored by many professional naval officers. Aware that secession could lead to war, Mallory was one of the important Southern leaders who urged caution in handling the crisis over Fort Pickens at Pensacola. He resigned his Senate seat on the secession of Florida. Despite some opposition to Mallory from die-hard secessionists who were angered by his plea for caution

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on Fort Pickens, in February 1861 Confederate president Davis appointed him secretary of the navy. Mallory was the only cabinet officer to keep his same position throughout the entire war, in large part because he got along well with Davis, whom he had known in the Senate. For the most part, Davis, whose interests lay with the army, gave Mallory a free hand. Mallory faced daunting challenges. He soon established a Confederate States Navy Department patterned after the U.S. Navy Department. Before the outbreak of the Civil War, he also sent naval agents to purchase supplies in the North, in Canada, and in Europe. Throughout the conflict, Mallory did the best he could with the meager resources available to him. Mallory was a staunch advocate of commerce raiding, which he hoped would disrupt the North financially, bring pressure on Washington to end the war, and divert Union warships from the blockade of Southern ports. He also dispatched naval agents to Europe to purchase cruisers and contract for the construction of others; the most successful of these was James D. Bulloch. Mallory’s other great goal was the construction of ironclad vessels to help break the Union blockade and even to attack Northern ports. As early as May 1861 he had written that the South should fight wood with iron. Here the South with its limited industrial base and scattered resources was at a great disadvantage, although Mallory hoped to offset this partially with purchases in Europe. He might have done better to have built the smaller, more successful ironclads from the beginning. Mallory also established the Torpedo Bureau, which experimented with torpedoes (naval mines) and the means to deliver them against Union warships. Mallory had the good sense to recognize innovative subordinates such as Lieutenant John Mercer Brooke; he assigned Brooke to the Bureau of Ordnance and Hydrography, even though Brooke had no prior experience in ordnance design. Brooke became the South’s leading designer of naval ordnance. Mallory came under increasing criticism after the loss of the Confederate ports of New Orleans, Memphis, and Norfolk, and the scuttling, to avoid capture, of the ironclad CSS Virginia. His critics brought forward a bill to abolish the navy and transfer its functions to the army, and in August 1862 they engineered a vote to censure Mallory personally. Both failed. A five-man congressional committee did investigate the department’s “inadequacy,” but Mallory did not have to testify and was cleared of any wrongdoing. In retrospect, given the situation and resources available, it is hard to see how anyone else could have performed more effectively. Mallory resigned his post on May 2, 1865. On May 20 Union troops arrested him, and until March 1866 he was imprisoned at Fort Lafayette in New York Harbor. On his release he returned to Florida to practice law. He also spoke out in public and in newspapers against the Radical Republican Reconstruction program. Mallory died in Pensacola on November 9, 1873. Spencer C. Tucker

368 |â•‡ Manassas, CSS See also Blockade of the Confederacy; Blockade-Runners; Brooke, John Mercer; Bulloch, James Dunwody; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Davis, Jefferson Finis; Discipline, Naval; Fort Pickens, Florida; Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, Relief Efforts and Beginning of the Civil War; Ironclads, Confederate; Naval Investigating Board, Confederate Congress; Naval Ordnance; Navy, CSA; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; Norfolk Navy Yard; Pensacola Navy Yard; Strategy, Confederate Naval; Torpedoes; Virginia, CSS

References Durkin, Joseph T. Stephen R. Mallory: Confederate Navy Chief. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1954. Patrick, Rembert W. Jefferson Davis and His Cabinet. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1944. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. Wells, Tom H. The Confederate Navy: A Study in Organization. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1971.

Manassas, CSS Confederate Navy ironclad ram. Built in 1855 at Medford, Massachusetts, as the icebreaker Enoch Train, from 1859 the ship had been a tugboat at New Orleans. At the outbreak of the war, John A. Stevenson, secretary of the New Orleans Pilots Benevolent Association, raised $100,000 to convert it into a privateer ironclad ram. Stevenson chose the ship because of its powerful bow. Working in some secrecy at Algiers, Louisiana, Stevenson removed the Enoch Train’s masts and superstructure and replaced the upper works with a convex deck of 12-inch-thick oak covered by 1.5 inches of iron plate. The bow was filled in solid with timber, producing a 20-foot-long ram. Powered by two antiquated engines, the renamed Manassas mounted only one gun, an 8-inch 64-pounder smoothbore that fired forward through a small bow gun port. To train the gun, the entire ship had to be turned. This first-ever Confederate ironclad was only 387 tons and 134 feet in length with a beam of 33 feet and draft of 17 feet. Propelled by a single screw, it was capable of only four knots. It had a crew complement of 35 men. In appearance, apart from a large central smokestack, the ram resembled a cigar floating on the water. Because the Manassas was the most powerful vessel available, the commander of Confederate naval forces on the upper Mississippi, Commander George N. Hollins, was loath to see it act as a privateer. On October 11, acting on his orders, Lieutenant Alexander Warley took possession of the ram, sending Stevenson and his crew ashore and replacing them with men from the squadron. Two months later, the Confederate government officially purchased the ram, but Hollins had no intention of waiting for this action. That very day the ram set out on Warley’s command, driving the Union blockading squadron from the Mississippi in the Battle

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of the Head of Passes (also known as Pope’s Run) early on October 12, although it sustained some damage itself. The ram also played a prominent role in fighting on the river on April 24, 1862, when Flag Officer David G. Farragut ran his West Gulf Coast Blockading Squadron up the Mississippi past Forts St. Philip and Jackson and on to New Orleans. Although the Manassas rammed the U.S. Navy screw sloop Brooklyn, the ram itself was damaged and its speed sharply reduced. Realizing the end was near, Warley ran the ram ashore, and its crew escaped. The Manassas was burned and destroyed. Spencer C. Tucker See also Brooklyn, USS; Farragut, David Glasgow; Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s Run Past; Head of Passes, Battle of; Hollins, George Nichols; Ironclads, Confederate; Mississippi River; New Orleans, Louisiana; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; Privateers; Riverine Warfare; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. Still, William N., Jr. Iron Afloat: The Story of the Confederate Armorclads. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1985. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Mare Island Navy Yard U.S. Navy yard on the West Coast. The second of two naval yards added to the original six (the other was Pensacola, Florida), Mare Island was established some 25 miles northeast of San Francisco in Vallejo, California. The Napa River separates Mare Island from the rest of Vallejo. Recognizing the need for a West Coast yard following the acquisition of California as a consequence of the Mexican-American War, the navy purchased the original 956 acres in 1853. A year later then-commander David G. Farragut arrived to oversee the establishment of the yard. The first ship built there was the side-wheel sloop Saginaw. The first U.S. Navy warship constructed on the Pacific coast, it was laid down in September 1858 and commissioned in January 1860. Some steam engines were built at the yard during the war. It also boasted a floating dry dock. Manufactured in New York, it was shipped in sections to California for assembly. The yard’s primary functions during the Civil War were to repair, overhaul, refuel, and reprovision navy ships. Removed from the operational area of the war’s major naval campaigns, Mare Island supported U.S. Navy ships searching for Confederate commerce raiders in the Pacific, such as CSS Shenandoah.

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Before its closure in April 1996, the Mare Island Naval Shipyard built 512 vessels of all types, including more than 300 landing craft. It constructed the only battleship ever built on the Pacific coast, USS California, and the facility also set a construction record, building the destroyer Ward during World War II in only 17.5 days. Spencer C. Tucker See also Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Farragut, David Glasgow; Pensacola Navy Yard; Shenandoah, CSS

References Canney, Donald L. Lincoln’s Navy: The Ships, Men and Organization, 1861–65. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998. Lott, Arnold S. A Long Line of Ships: Mare Island’s Century of Naval Activity in California. Annapolis, MD: United States Naval Institute, 1954.

Marine Corps, CSA Created by act of the Confederate Congress on March 16, 1861, the Confederate Marine Corps was governed by the same regulations established for the U.S. Marine Corps in 1852. Marines were part of the navy establishment but held army ranks. They performed the traditional duties of shipboard security and acting as orderlies. Having been trained both in small arms and large naval ordnance, during battle they assisted on the gun deck and formed boarding parties when required. They also helped constitute shore parties. When assigned ashore, the primary marine duty was to guard naval yards. At the pleasure of the president, they could be called out to quell civil unrest. Confederate marines performed these same functions during the Civil War. The Confederate Marine Corps was, however, organized somewhat differently than the U.S. Marine Corps. It was initially organized as a single battalion of six companies commanded by a major. The regimental staff consisted of a quartermaster, a paymaster, an adjutant, a sergeant major, and a quartermaster sergeant. A captain commanded each company assisted by a first lieutenant and a second lieutenant. Enlisted personnel at the company level consisted of 4 sergeants, 4 corporals, 2 musicians, and 100 privates. When it was apparent that a battalion was insufficient to fill Confederate Navy requirements, the strength of the corps was increased to a regiment of 10 companies. On May 30, 1861, the staff was changed to include a colonel, a lieutenant colonel, a quartermaster at the rank of major, a sergeant major, and a quartermaster sergeant. In addition, there were a major, 10 captains, 10 first lieutenants, and 20 second lieutenants. Enlisted strength in the 10 companies consisted of 40 sergeants, 40 corporals, 2 musicians, 10 drummers, 10 fifers, and 840 privates.

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Colonel Lloyd James Bell from Maryland, who had been a U.S. Army major and paymaster but had resigned his commission in April 1861, became the first commandant of the Confederate Marine Corps. Most of the other officers, however, had served with the U.S. Marine Corps. Twenty-two of 67 serving U.S. Marine Corps officers in 1861 resigned their U.S. commissions and accepted service in the Confederate Marine Corps. The full Confederate marine manpower complement was never realized. The long term of enlistment (at first four years but later reduced to three), inadequate bounties (initially $10, later raised to $450), and reputation for harsh discipline worked against this. The maximum number of Confederate marines at any one time was 571 on October 31, 1864. Marine pay was generally on a par with that of the army. As with the navy, the Confederate Marine Corps suffered from frequent squabbles among the officers over rank and assignments. During the Civil War, Confederate marines provided excellent service. In the first year of the war, they were chiefly concentrated at the Pensacola Navy Yard in Florida, where they saw action in raids against Union forces at Fort Pickens. Confederate marines served on the Sumter, the first Confederate commerce raider, and, when that ship was at Gibraltar about to be sold, Sergeant George Stephenson was the ship’s last commander. He thus enjoys the distinction of being the sole marine, North or South, to command a ship in the war. Marines took part in the battle for Port Royal, South Carolina, in November 1861. They also saw action in the engagement between CSS Virginia and USS Monitor during March 8–9, 1862, and in the First Battle of Drewry’s Bluff (March 15) on the James River in Virginia after which a permanent marine camp, known as Camp Beall, was established at Drewry’s Bluff. There they helped guard the Richmond and Manchester navy yards as well as the James River Squadron and were heavily engaged in the Second Battle of Drewry’s Bluff on May 16, 1864. Confederate marines also took part in the defense of Charleston, South Carolina, and participated in the capture of the U.S. Navy gunboat Water Witch, taken on June 3, 1864. Marines served with distinction in the battles of Fort Fisher on December 24–25, 1864, and January 13–15, 1865, and formed part of the naval brigade that fought in the Battle of Sayler’s Creek, Virginia, on April 6, 1865. Robert A. Lynn and Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Charleston, South Carolina; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Drewry’s Bluff, First Battle of; Fort Fisher Campaign; Fort Pickens, Florida; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Ironclads, Confederate; James River; James River Squadron, CSA; Marine Corps, U.S.; Mississippi River; Mobile Bay, Battle of; Monitor, USS; Naval Ordnance; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; Pensacola Navy Yard; Port Royal Sound, Battle of; Richmond, Virginia; Riverine Warfare; Sumter, CSS; Virginia, CSS

References Donnelly, Ralph W. The Confederate States Marine Corps: The Rebel Leathernecks. Shippensburg, PA: White Mane, 1989.

372 |â•‡ Marine Corps, U.S. Field, Ron, and Richard Hook. American Civil War Marines, 1861–65. Osceola, WI: Osprey, 2004. Luraghi, Raimondo. A History of the Confederate Navy. Translated by Paolo D. Coletta. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1996. Millett, Allan R. Semper Fidelis: The History of the United States Marine Corps. New York: Macmillan, 1980. Still, William N., Jr., ed. The Confederate Navy: The Ships, Men and Organization, 1861–65. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997. Sullivan, David M. The United States Marine Corps in the Civil War. Shippensburg, PA: White Mane, 1997.

Marine Corps, U.S. At the onset of the Civil War, members of the U.S. Marine Corps continued to fulfill their traditional duty of providing security on naval warships. They also served as orderlies. As they were supposed to be proficient in both the use of small arms and exercise of large naval guns, during battle marines assisted on the gun deck and helped constitute boarding parties. They also participated in the occasional landing parties sent ashore. When assigned ashore, their principal duty was guarding the various navy yards. At the direction of the president, marines could also be called upon to put down civil disorder. While they were part of the navy establishment, marines held army ranks. There were 2,355 U.S. marines in June 1861. Surprisingly few officers resigned their commissions to fight for the South. Of 67 marine officers at the start of the Civil War, only 22 resigned to accept commissions with the South. Among these was adjutant and inspector Major Henry B. Tyler. Of remaining marine officers only Majors John G. Reynolds and Jacob Zeilin had ever commanded in combat, during the Mexican-American War. As with the army, the majority of newly commissioned officers did not receive their commissions through demonstrated military ability. Congress authorized two increases in the size of the Marine Corps during the war, in 1861 and 1863. By war’s end, the corps counted 87 officers and 3,774 enlisted men. Achieving authorized enlistment strength remained a problem throughout the war. In large part this reflected difficulties with bounties. Once enlisted, recruits were sent to the Marine Barracks in Washington, D.C., for their military instruction. The Marine Corps suffered from inferior leadership. All of the corps’ senior officers were in their sixties, too old for field service and too committed to an administrative role. Commandant Colonel John Harris had been commissioned in the War of 1812 and had last seen combat during the Seminole Wars. Following his death on May 2, 1864, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles retired several other senior officers in order to appoint the capable Zeilin as Harris’s successor. None

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of the senior leadership, however, suggested to the Lincoln administration the possibility of employing the corps as an amphibious assault force, its raison d’être in the next century. The Marine Corps distinguished itself in the years immediately before the war in quelling civil unrest. On June 1, 1857, marines helped crush an attempt by the so-called Plug-Uglies to disrupt elections in Washington, D.C. Then, on October 17, 1859, marines put down the insurrection led by abolitionist John Brown at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. As the first Southern states seceded in early 1861, marines successfully protected Washington, D.C., and Baltimore from potential mob violence. Marines helped provide security in New York City in the wake of the New York City Draft Riots in July 1863. In Florida, the marine detachment at the Pensacola Navy Yard surrendered on orders, but marine reinforcements subsequently assisted in the defense of Fort Pickens. Marines also assisted in the destruction of the Norfolk Navy Yard, precipitously abandoned upon the secession of Virginia. Major Reynolds marched a battalion of nearly 350 marines from Washington to fight as infantry with Brigadier General Irvin McDowell’s army during the First Battle of Bull Run on July 21, 1861. Reynolds’s men were only recently enlisted and largely untrained, and they soon collapsed under the pressure of the Confederate counterattack at Henry Hill, subsequently withdrawing with the rest of McDowell’s force. Future efforts at battalion-sized operations also met with similar unfavorable results. Reynolds deployed a new marine battalion to participate in Flag Officer Samuel Du Pont’s capture of Port Royal, South Carolina, on November 7, 1861. However, in the severe storm that scattered the Union ships en route, the transport sank, drowning seven men and preventing the battalion from taking part. A separate battalion under Major Zeilin arrived to take part in Union operations against Charleston, South Carolina. Some of the men participated in the ill-conceived night attack against Fort Sumter on September 8, 1863. Some 150 marines took part in a naval-marine brigade formed in 1864 from men of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron that saw action in a series of low-intensity fights in South Carolina in an effort to sever the Charleston-Savannah railroad line. Marines also saw action in the battles of Fort Fisher on December 24–25, 1864, and January 13–15, 1865. On January 13, 1865, Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter organized a naval brigade of 1,600 sailors and 400 marines to assault the face of the fort, on the assumption that the naval bombardment had weakened that redoubt’s defenses and that the fleet would provide supporting fire. The attack went awry with the assault force soon pinned down. The marines suffered 60 casualties. The attack did, however, distract the Confederate defenders, who assumed it to be the principal Union effort, and this helped the army assault on the north face to succeed. Marines played a key role in the blockade, serving aboard warships. Marine gunners took part in Flag Officer David Farragut’s passage of the Mississippi forts

374 |â•‡ Marston, John

and capture of New Orleans during April 1862, and they earned distinction in the Battle of Mobile Bay on August 5, 1864, when eight marines won Medals of Honor. Fellow gunners aboard the U.S. Navy steam sloop Kearsarge contributed to the sinking of the Confederate commerce raider Alabama off Cherbourg, France, on June 19, 1864. Overall, the corps lost 77 men killed in combat during the entire war. Colonel Zeilin rendered his chief service to the corps after the war by defeating a move to abolish the corps altogether. The commandant’s greatest supporters were senior naval officers who defended the dutiful service of the corps during the Civil War and its necessity to the navy. Bradford Wineman See also Alabama vs. Kearsarge; Amphibious Warfare; Blockade of the Confederacy; Charleston, South Carolina; Du Pont, Samuel Francis; Farragut, David Glasgow; Fort Fisher Campaign; Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s Run Past; Fort Pickens, Florida; Lincoln, Abraham; Marine Corps, CSA; Medal of Honor, U.S. Navy; Mississippi River; Mobile Bay, Battle of; Naval Ordnance; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; Norfolk Navy Yard; Pensacola Navy Yard; Porter, David Dixon; Port Royal Sound, Battle of; Riverine Warfare; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Welles, Gideon

References Millett, Allan R. Semper Fidelis: The History of the United States Marine Corps. New York: Macmillan, 1980. Nalty, Bernard C. The United States Marines at Harper’s Ferry and in the Civil War. Washington, DC: Historical Branch, G-3 Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1966. Sullivan, David M. The United States Marine Corps in the Civil War. Shippensburg, PA: White Mane, 1997.

Marston, John Birth Date: February 26, 1795 Death Date: April 8, 1885 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, on February 26, 1795, John Marston received an appointment as an acting midshipman in the U.S. Navy on April 15, 1813. During the War of 1812 he served aboard the frigate President and then at the Portsmouth Navy Yard in New Hampshire. Following the war, he alternated service in the Mediterranean and Brazilian squadrons with shore duty and was promoted to lieutenant on January 13, 1825. He then began a period of nearly 11 years on leave of absence and furlough, seeing only brief service on the sloop Vandalia in the West Indies Squadron in 1832 and 1833. After 5 years of active service from 1837 to 1842, primarily with the Brazil Squadron, which included promotion to commander on September 8, 1841, he spent another 6 years on leave or awaiting orders. In 1848, he assumed command of the sloop Yorktown

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in the African Squadron for a 2-year tour of duty. After another period of professional inactivity, he served at the Philadelphia Navy Yard from 1852 to 1855; he was promoted to captain on September 14, 1855, which was followed by another extended period of leave, this one lasting until 1860. At the beginning of 1861, Marston had been in the navy for 46 years: 21 years in sea service, 10 years in assignments ashore, and 14 years awaiting orders in a navy with too many officers for available billets. At the beginning of the Civil War, Marston was commanding the sailing frigate Cumberland, flagship of the Home Squadron. He retained this command until September 1861. In April 1861, he participated in the evacuation of the Norfolk Navy Yard and in August and September 1861, as part of the Atlantic Blockading Squadron, took part in actions in the waters off North Carolina, including the assault on Hatteras Inlet. In September, Marston assumed command of the screw frigate Roanoke in the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron. Although transferred to the retired list in December 1861, he remained on active duty, serving with the Roanoke until March 1862, when it was ordered to New York to be rebuilt as an ironclad. Placed on the retired list on December 21, 1861, for reasons of age, Marston nonetheless continued on active duty until mid-March. With squadron commander Flag Officer Louis M. Goldsborough involved with much of the squadron in operations at Hatteras Inlet, North Carolina, Marston was the senior officer present when the Confederate ironclad ram Virginia sortied from the Norfolk Navy Yard and attacked the ships of the Union squadron in Hampton Roads on March 8, 1862. Marston could only watch as the Virginia sank both the sailing sloop Congress and Marston’s former command, the Cumberland. That evening, when the ironclad Monitor arrived from New York, Marston countermanded orders from Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles to send that ship immediately to Washington, D.C., to defend the capital, instead retaining it to counter the Virginia’s expected return and defend the grounded steam frigate Minnesota. On March 9, the Monitor fought its famous duel with the Virginia in the first battle between two ironclad warships. After the Roanoke was decommissioned for repairs at the end of March 1862, Marston spent the remainder of the Civil War on shore duty, primarily as inspector of the Second Lighthouse District headquartered in Boston from October 1862 to November 1865. He received promotion to commodore on the retired list on July 16, 1862. On March 28, 1881, he received a final promotion to rear admiral on the retired list. Marston died in Philadelphia on April 8, 1885. Stephen Svonavec See also Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Goldsborough, Louis Malesherbes; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Hatteras Inlet, Union Assault on; Ironclads, Union; Minnesota, USS; Monitor, USS; Norfolk Navy Yard; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Philadelphia Navy Yard; Portsmouth Navy Yard; Roanoke, USS; Virginia, CSS; Welles, Gideon; Worden, John Lorimer

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References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Canney, Donald L. Africa Squadron: The U.S. Navy and the Slave Trade, 1842–1861. Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2006. Quarstein, John V., and Joseph Gutierrez. “Who Won the Battle of Hampton Roads? A Historians’ Debate.” In The Battle of Hampton Roads: New Perspectives on the USS Monitor and CSS Virginia, edited by Harold Holzer and Tim Mulligan, 141–154. New York: Fordham University Press, 2006. Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 7. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1898.

Mason, James Murray Birth Date: November 3, 1798 Death Date: April 28, 1871 U.S. lawyer, congressman (1837–1839), senator (1847–1861), Confederate diplomatic envoy to Great Britain (1861–1865), and a principal player in the 1861–1862 Trent Affair. James Murray Mason was born in Fairfax County, Virginia (now part of the District of Columbia), on November 3, 1798, to a wealthy and politically prominent family. His grandfather, George Mason, was one of America’s Founding Fathers and principal architect of the Bill of Rights in the Constitution of 1787. Mason was privately tutored and subsequently graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1818 and the College of William and Mary from which he earned a law degree in 1820. Mason was admitted to the Virginia bar and began the practice of law in Winchester. In 1826, he entered electoral politics, serving in the Virginia House of Delegates during 1826–1827 and again from 1828 to 1832. In 1836, he ran successfully for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives as a Jacksonian Democrat; he served in the House from 1837 until 1839. By all accounts, Mason was a difficult personality, and he made as many enemies as he did friends. Many found him pompous, egotistical, and high-handed. Returning to his law practice in 1839, Mason made a successful run for the U.S. Senate on the Democratic ticket in 1846, serving in that body from 1847 until March 1861 at which point he tendered his resignation to join the Confederate cause. In the Senate, Mason staked out a position for himself as an ardent proponent of states’ rights, allying himself early on with the inestimable John C. Calhoun from

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South Carolina. During the tortuous deliberations that produced the Compromise of 1850, it was Mason who authored the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which he viewed as absolutely essential to hammering out an agreement that was palatable to both North and South. Mason was also a staunch proponent of slavery, believing that slave labor was the very bedrock on which the Southern economy and society rested. As the 1850s progressed and sectional strife steadily increased, Mason came to conclude that further compromise was unworkable and that secession for the Southern states would prove to be the only solution. When the Civil War began in April 1861, Mason promptly offered his services to the Confederate government; his long friendship with Jefferson Davis virtually assured that he would play a vital role in the fledgling regime. A delegate to the Confederate Congress from Virginia, Mason was soon tapped to become Confederate commissioner to Great Britain. In late October 1861, Mason and John Slidell, who had been appointed commissioner to France, left the Confederacy, bound first for Cuba from which they would continue to Europe aboard a British mail steamer. Both men had hoped that traveling inconspicuously would not raise suspicions in the Union. On November 8, 1861, the British mail packet Trent, which had left Havana the day before, was stopped by the U.S. Navy screw frigate San Jacinto. A U.S. boarding party dispatched by the San Jacinto’s captain, Charles Wilkes, demanded that Mason and Slidell be remanded to U.S. custody, a violation of British neutrality. The two men were taken aboard the San Jacinto, which then sailed to Boston, where Mason and Slidell were detained at Fort Warren. The Trent Affair created immediate—and serious—problems for Abraham Lincoln’s administration. London demanded that the United States release Mason and Slidell, under the threat of war. Naturally anxious to avoid a conflict with Great Britain, Secretary of State William Seward, working closely with Benjamin Disraeli and Prince Albert, engineered an end to the crisis, and Mason and Slidell were allowed to continue on to Europe aboard a British warship in January 1862. Mason’s principal goal in London was to secure British recognition of the Confederate States of America and to arrange for the sale of war matériel, including ships. Although the British government refused to officially receive him, British merchants and investors, eager to make a profit, helped him secure numerous purchases for Confederate agents. Mason was also fairly successful in selling bonds to British investors to help finance the Confederate war effort. Mason had hoped to convince the British government that recognizing the Confederacy would help the British economy. He envisioned the purchase of British industrial goods in return for the sale of cheap Southern cotton, which would power Britain’s mighty textile industry. His attempts to practice “Cotton Diplomacy” failed, however, because the British had more than a two-year inventory of that commodity. They were also able to procure cotton from their own colonies in the Middle East and India. Furthermore, London believed that to risk war with the

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Union, and to risk the loss of lucrative markets there, far outweighed any potential benefits of recognizing the Confederacy. When the war ended in 1865, Mason, fearing that he would be arrested for treason if he returned to the United States, temporarily settled in Canada. After President Andrew Johnson issued a second amnesty offer in 1868, Mason returned to Virginia. He died in Arlington, Virginia, on April 28, 1871. Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr. See also Adams, Charles Francis, Sr.; Bulloch, James Dunwody; Davis, Jefferson Finis; Fort Warren, Massachusetts; Lincoln, Abraham; Slidell, John; Trent Affair; Wilkes, Charles

References Bulloch, James Dunwody. The Secret Service of the Confederate States in Europe, or How the Confederate Cruisers Were Equipped. New York: Modern Library, 2001. Ferris, Norman B. The Trent Affair: A Diplomatic Crisis. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1977. Mahin, Dean B. One War at a Time: The International Dimensions of the Civil War. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1999. Young, Robert W. Senator James Murray Mason: Defender of the Old South. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1998.

Maury, Matthew Fontaine Birth Date: January 14, 1806 Death Date: February 4, 1873 Confederate Navy officer and oceanographer. Born on January 14, 1806, in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, Matthew Fontaine Maury was raised in Tennessee and there attended Harpeth Academy. He obtained a warrant as a midshipman in the U.S. Navy on February 20, 1825, and completed three long cruises over the next nine years. Promoted to passed midshipman on June 4, 1831, and to lieutenant on June 10, 1836, Maury had a keen interest in navigation and published a treatise on it in 1836. Writing under various pseudonyms, he had also pushed for naval reform, especially in the education of midshipmen through establishment of a naval academy. In 1839 Maury’s promising career at sea was cut short when he injured his leg and was left crippled for life. In 1842 he became superintendent of the Depot of Charts and Instruments in Washington, D.C., and in 1844 he was also made director of the Naval Observatory. In these posts Maury made major contributions in meteorology and oceanography. After examining thousands of ships’ logs and securing assistance from many ship captains, he published two highly acclaimed books: Winds and Current Chart of the North Atlantic (1847) and The Physical Geography of the Sea (1855). His pioneering research in oceanography helped reduce sailing time on long voyages and led to an international conference in Brussels in 1853

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on the subject of marine navigation. Maury’s work was so important that he might be called the father of oceanography; indeed, he was known as the Pathfinder of the Seas. Among other projects, Maury called for the laying of a transatlantic cable. In 1855 the Naval Efficiency Board, which had been created to remove the logjam in promotion by culling dead wood from the service, placed Maury on the reserve list (September 14). He immediately protested, blaming Stephen Mallory of Florida, chairman of the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs and later Confederate secretary of the navy, a champion of the process. Maury’s supporters helped Matthew F. Maury is best remembered for win him reinstatement on the active carrying out the first systematic survey of list as a commander, with date of rank ocean currents and winds, which earned him the title “Pathfinder of the Seas.” During the of September 14, 1855. With the beginning of the Civil War, Civil War, Maury was a commander in the Confederate Navy and helped develop Maury resigned from the U.S. Navy defenses for the James River, most notably on April 26, 1861. Joining the Confed- in the form of electronically controlled eracy, he was attached to the Office of mines, known as torpedoes. Orders and Details at Richmond. He (Library of Congress) clashed frequently with Mallory over naval policy, principally over the type of navy for the South. Maury favored a larger number of small gunboats mounting two to four guns each, whereas Mallory wanted fewer powerful ironclads. The success of the ironclad CSS Virginia reversed support in the Confederate Congress for Maury’s proposal. Maury worked hard to develop defenses for the James River, chiefly in the form of electrically detonated mines, but late in 1862, largely because of his international reputation, Mallory sent Maury to Europe to purchase ships and naval supplies for the Confederacy. He finished out the war in Great Britain. After the war, Maury settled first in Mexico and then in England. He returned to the United States in 1868 to become professor of meteorology at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia. He died there on February 4, 1873. Spencer C. Tucker See also James River; Mallory, Stephen Russell; Naval Academy, United States; Naval Efficiency Board; Navy, CSA; Strategy, Confederate Naval; Torpedoes; Virginia, CSS

380 |â•‡ McCauley, Charles Stewart

References Lewis, Charles L. Matthew Fontaine Maury: The Pathfinder of the Seas. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1927. Stanton, William. “Matthew Fontaine Maury: Navy Science for the World.” In Captains of the Old Steam Navy: Makers of the American Naval Tradition, 1840–1880, edited by James C. Bradford, 46–63. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1986. Whipple, A. B. C. Stranded Navy Man Who Charted the World’s Seas. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1984.

McCauley, Charles Stewart Birth Date: February 3, 1793 Death Date: May 21, 1869 Union naval officer. Charles Stewart McCauley was born in Philadelphia on February 3, 1793; he was the nephew of Rear Admiral (retired) Charles Stewart, the famed commander of the frigate USS Constitution during the War of 1812. Appointed midshipman on January 16, 1809, he served in the waters off the Virginia coast and on Lake Ontario during the War of 1812. After his promotion to lieutenant on December 9, 1814, he was stationed in the Mediterranean Squadron, followed by service in the South Atlantic. On March 3, 1831, McCauley was promoted to master commandant. Three years later, he commanded the sloop St. Louis in the West India Squadron. Promoted to captain on December 9, 1839, he commanded the ship of the line Delaware from 1841 to 1844. During the Mexican-American War of 1846–1848, he had charge of the Washington Navy Yard, and from 1850 to 1853 he served as commander in chief of the Pacific Squadron. In 1855, President Franklin Pierce commended Captain McCauley’s efforts for guarding American interests near Cuba. McCauley was placed in command of the Norfolk (Gosport) Navy Yard in Virginia, on August 1, 1860. His orders were to maintain good relations by not provoking the local Virginia citizens, who had yet to decide whether or not to secede. But, by mid-April 1861, the navy had grave concerns over the fate of the important facility. Naval officials instructed McCauley to evacuate the most valuable docked ships, particularly the steam frigate USS Merrimack, and to destroy the yard. On April 18, 1861, the day after Virginia seceded, the Merrimack was ready to sail, but McCauley refused to allow it to leave. Apparently adhering to his earlier orders to not act aggressively, he failed to take preemptive action. Only when he believed that the yard was in imminent danger of being overtaken by local troops two days later did he respond. On April 20, 1861, three days after Virginia had officially seceded from the Union, he ordered all the ships, including the Merrimack, to be scuttled, while buildings and supplies were to be burned. Upon the navy’s departure, local militia quickly stormed the yard to extinguish the fires, thus saving most of the buildings,

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cannons, and gunpowder. Three ships were salvaged, along with the Merrimack’s hull, which the Confederates later converted to the ironclad CSS Virginia. A Senate committee declared McCauley’s actions irresponsible for not releasing the Merrimack to sail and abandoning his post before all resources had been destroyed. Accused of incompetence and drunkenness, McCauley retired on December 21, 1861, and went into seclusion at his home in Washington, D.C. After the war, he was rewarded for his distinguished career with a promotion to commodore. He died two years later on May 21, 1869, in Washington, D.C. Donna Smith See also Hampton Roads, Battle of; Monitor, USS; Norfolk Navy Yard; Virginia, CSS; Washington Navy Yard

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Hoehling, A. A. Thunder at Hampton Roads. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1976. Johnson, Clint. Civil War Blunders. Winston-Salem, NC: J. F. Blair, 1997.

McKean, William Wister Birth Date: September 19, 1800 Death Date: April 22, 1865 U.S. Navy officer. William Wister McKean was born in Philadelphia on September 19, 1800. He entered the U.S. Navy as a midshipman on November 30, 1814, at the end of the War of 1812. During the 1820s, he served in the squadron in the West Indies charged with suppressing piracy, and, as commander of the schooner Alligator, he successfully captured the Columbian privateer Cinecqa on April 30, 1822. Promoted to lieutenant on January 13, 1825, McKean subsequently served in the Mediterranean and Brazil squadrons. Promoted to commander on September 8, 1841, he was advanced to captain on September 14, 1855. During those decades he commanded ships in the Pacific Squadron and the Home Squadron. He also served as the governor of the Naval Asylum in Philadelphia. In 1860, McKean was ordered to the screw frigate Niagara on special duty to escort Japanese diplomats from Washington, D.C., to New York City. At the beginning of 1861, McKean had served in the navy for 46 years: some 16 years in service afloat, 13 years in shore assignments, and 16 years awaiting orders in a navy with too many officers for available billets. McKean returned from the Far East at the start of the Civil War in April 1861. Still commanding the Niagara, he was ordered to participate in the blockade of the Confederate coastline. On September 6, 1862, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles appointed McKean to command the Gulf Blockading Squadron. When it was split into two the next

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month, he took over the East Gulf Blockading Squadron, while Captain David G. Farragut took command of the West Gulf Blockading Squadron. McKean directed attacks on Fort McRee, the Pensacola Navy Yard, and the town of Warrington, Florida, in November 1861. On December 9, Captain Theodorus Bailey replaced the ailing McKean in command of the East Gulf Blockading Squadron. McKean was placed on the retired list on December 27 and relieved from active duty on June 4, 1862. He was promoted to commodore on the retired list on July 16, 1862. He died at his home near Binghamton, New York, on April 22, 1865. Donna Smith See also Bailey, Theodorus; East Gulf Blockading Squadron; Farragut, David Glasgow; Fort Pickens, Florida; Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, Relief Efforts and Beginning of the Civil War; Gulf Blockading Squadron; Pensacola Navy Yard; Philadelphia Naval Asylum; Welles, Gideon; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Buchanan, Roberdeau. Genealogy of the McKean Family of Pennsylvania. Lancaster, PA: Inquirer Printing, 1890. Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Calore, Paul. Naval Campaigns of the Civil War. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2002. Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Medal of Honor, U.S. Navy The Medal of Honor is the nation’s oldest decoration for valor in combat, authorized by an act of Congress on December 21, 1861. During the Civil War, only enlisted personnel of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps were eligible for this award. It was extended to officers as of March 3, 1915. Designed by R. T. G. Winkler of the William Wilson & Son company of Philadelphia, the decoration was composed of a 2.1-inch, five-pointed star. In the center was an image of the Roman goddess Minerva warding off Discord, a representation of the seceded states. Surrounding this icon were 34 stars representing the states of the Union at the time of the Civil War. All states were represented because the U.S. government did not recognize the Confederate States of America. The star was suspended from a red, white, and blue ribbon by an anchor. The first authorized recipient of the medal was John Williams, a sailor aboard the screw sloop Pawnee, cited for bravery while leading a landing party against

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Confederate batteries at Mathias Point, Virginia, on June 27, 1861. The first person to receive the decoration in person was Fireman Charles Kenyon for his actions aboard the ironclad Galena at Drewry’s Bluff on May 15, 1862. A total of 319 sailors and 17 marines received the navy Medal of Honor during the Civil War. Although the features of the medal have changed, the decoration continues to be awarded to present-day naval personnel. There was no award comparable to the Medal of Honor in the Confederate Navy. William E. Whyte III See also Drewry’s Bluff, First Battle of; Galena, USS; Marine Corps, U.S.; Pawnee, USS

References Borch, Fred L., and Charles P. McDowell. Sea Service Medals. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2009. Stevens, Paul D., ed. The Medal of Honor: The Names, the Deeds. Rev. ed. Forest Ranch, CA: Sharps and Dunnigan, 1990.

Medicine, Naval Because the greatest part of the naval action in the Civil War was fought either in coastal waters or along rivers, much of the military medicine in that arena revolved around the transport and treatment of men wounded in land battles. And because the Confederate Navy was small and virtually never in control of important waterways, the story is largely that of Union forces. Prior to the Civil War, medicine in the U.S. Navy was limited in scope and practiced at a level that may well have justified the marginal rank and respect it was accorded. W. P. C. Barton, the first chief of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery of the Navy Department, said that, for military surgeons, “the unsettled and wandering life on board ship not only deters the gratification of professional ambition, but also generates an inanition of mind very inimical to solid improvement of any kind.” A naval doctor spent the majority of his time at sea treating venereal disease, the “itch” caused by shipboard vermin, and drunkenness. The most professionally satisfying assignments were generally on land, either in temporary teaching assignments at civilian or military medical schools or at naval hospitals. The first of those hospitals had been built at Norfolk, Virginia, in 1830, followed by others at Philadelphia, Boston, and Brooklyn in the same decade. By the time the Annapolis naval hospital was built in 1853, the entire naval medical department functioned on a budget of only $50,000 a year. That same year, a laboratory was established at the Brooklyn Navy Hospital. The new anesthetics chloroform and ether were in short supply, and Surgeon B. F. Bache and Passed Surgeon E. R. Squibb adapted the laboratory to manufacture those chemicals. They were so successful that, three years prior to the beginning of the Civil

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War, Squibb left the navy and started a private business that would supply the Union Army and eventually grow into the major pharmaceutical firm bearing his name. Squibb sold drugs to both the army and the navy, and U.S. Navy surgeons performed a total of 8,900 operations with patients under anesthesia (6,784 with chloroform and 811 with ether) during the war. Medical care on ships had begun to improve with the advent of steam power in the 1840s. The new ships could afford space for permanent clinics and surgeries and were able to devote more attention to ventilation and sanitation. Loblolly boys, whose main Naval surgucal instruments in use aboard jobs had been to carry soup for invaships during the Civil War. Included are bone lids and clean blood and severed limbs saw, bone scraper, forcepts and artery from the decks of temporary operating clamps, knives, and scapels. (Naval History rooms, became surgeons’ stewards in and Heritage Command) the 1840s. They were accorded the status of petty officers and made responsible for keeping the ships’ medical journals, for compounding and dispensing drugs, and for applying such minor treatments as cupping and bleeding. During the 1860s, in recognition of their clinical roles, enlisted men in the naval medical corps were given the ranks of apothecary first and second class. Those directly involved in bedside care were called either nurses or, more commonly, man nurses. On the other hand, through the 1850s naval surgeons were still relegated to an ill-defined “relative rank,” in which surgeons were just below commanders, passed surgeons were below lieutenants, and assistant surgeons were below masters. The chief of the medical bureau was paid at the same rate as a commodore. Naval surgeons would not become actual members of the officer corps until 1871. At the beginning of the war, mortality from battlefield injuries treated aboard ships was a staggering 62 percent, mostly from secondary infections that were, in all likelihood, predominantly from streptococcus, tetanus, and other soil-borne anaerobes. As the war progressed, techniques of wound debridement improved, and the mortality rate dropped to as low as 3 percent in some cases. Naval surgeries were typically characterized by the acrid smell of bromine gas, which was used as a deodorizer without the surgeons realizing that it was also an effective disinfectant. Other aspects of surgical sanitation were not so fortuitous. Wounds were typically washed with sea sponges, which were stored in water buckets beside the operating


table and repeatedly reused without further cleaning. Confederate surgeons ran out of sponges early in the war and were forced to rely on cotton rags that had to be washed between cases. This probably played a major part in Confederate patients’ lower infection rate. Similarly, Union surgeons closed wounds with silk suture obtained from harness-making factories; the unsterilized twisted silk fibers were a nearly perfect carrier for bacteria. The Confederates quickly ran out of silk and resorted to monofilament horsehair, which was much less likely to harbor pathogens. In both cases, deficiencies in supply paradoxically benefitted the Southern wounded. The most common major operation in both sea- and land-based naval hospitals was amputation, largely because the usual treatment for any open fracture was removal of the affected limb in hopes of preventing sepsis from chronically infected bones. These amputations remained the standard of care, even though those done immediately after injury carried a 26 percent mortality rate and those done after a delay had a death rate twice that high. Analysis of surgical data after the war belatedly proved that mortality was only 18 percent if amputation were avoided altogether. A major contributor to infection following war wounds was the fact that, early in the war, both Northern and Southern surgeons relied on tourniquets and cautery to control hemorrhage. Both methods resulted in large areas of dead tissue that became ideal media for bacterial growth. As the war progressed, these methods were gradually replaced by direct ligature of bleeding vessels and by pressure dressings, with a consequent decrease in infections. The use of ships and boats to treat and transport Civil War wounded began after the Battle of Wilson’s Creek near Belmont, Missouri, on August 10, 1861. The nearest hospitals were at Cairo and Mound City, Illinois; rail transport was unavailable and the roads were poor, so Union surgeons commandeered riverboats to move the men. Although transport by water was faster and less traumatic than bouncing along rutted dirt roads, conditions were far from ideal. The riverboats’ primary military responsibility was moving ammunition and supplies, and their captains were prone to treat the wounded as nothing more than cargo, and relatively unimportant cargo at that. They regularly stopped to pick up materiel, and if it happened to be ammunition or other supplies needed on a battlefield they had just left, the captains were likely to turn around to return the load before carrying the wounded on to rear-area hospitals. It became clear early in the war that ships primarily assigned to moving the wounded were needed. The first dedicated Union hospital ship was the City of Memphis, leased by the Western Sanitary Commission. It carried 750 beds and was used on the Tennessee River on February 7 and 8, 1862, to move men wounded in the Battle of Fort Henry to hospitals in Paducah, Kentucky, and Mound City. In April 1862 the U.S. Navy purchased its first hospital ship, the D. A. January. The riverboat had been built to carry passengers in 1857 and was refurbished by the navy in St. Louis to carry 150 beds in each of three wards, with additional

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wounded housed under awnings on deck. The boat had its own laundry and steampowered fans, which ventilated spaces below deck. Pipes passing through ice chests made cold water available at taps throughout the ship, which also boasted a modern and relatively spacious operating room. The January carried six loads of wounded from Pittsburg Landing north to hospitals in St. Louis and Keokuk, Iowa, after the Battle of Shiloh. By the end of the war, the January had moved 23,738 patients to hospitals along the Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois rivers with an astonishingly low 2.3 percent mortality rate—much less than that in any land-based hospital. It is almost certain that Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) served as pilot on the City of Memphis, and it is likely that he served in the same capacity on the D. A. January in the years immediately preceding the war. The most famous Union hospital ship was the Red Rover, a Mississippi River side-wheeler attached to Rear Admiral David D. Porter’s Mississippi River Squadron. The Red Rover was built at Cape Girardeau, Missouri, in 1857 and was bought as a transport by the Confederate government in 1861. It was serving as a floating barracks when Island Number 10 was captured by Union forces on April 7, 1862. The ship was bought by the Western Sanitary Commission and refitted as a hospital ship. The Red Rover came back into service in that capacity in June 1862, complete with gauze screens over the windows to keep out smoke and ash, 300 tons of ice to cool water and wards, a fully equipped operating room, and an elevator to move patients between decks. The navy purchased the ship in September 1862 and commissioned it as the Red Rover that December. The Red Rover was widely considered to be a “floating palace.” Porter boasted that it was “fitted with every comfort, and poor Jack, when sick or wounded, was cared for in a style never before dreamed of in the Navy.” Perhaps to demonstrate that it was still a military ship, the Red Rover had a 32-pounder gun mounted on the bow, although it is unlikely that the weapon was ever fired. The ship operated on the Mississippi, Ohio, Cumberland, and Tennessee rivers and carried 1,697 patients, with only 151 deaths in two and a half years of service. The Red Rover’s chief medical officer was Surgeon Ninian Pinkney, a singular character who had been born in the house that later became the Naval Academy Chapel in Annapolis. He was educated at St. Johns College in that city and at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia before joining the navy as an assistant surgeon in 1834. While suspended for fighting with a superior officer in 1840, Pinkney passed the time studying in surgical clinics in London, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. He made a name for himself by vociferously and unsuccessfully campaigning through the 1850s for regular rank for naval surgeons. He was named fleet surgeon to the Mississippi River Squadron in 1860 and impressed Porter enough that the latter informally named the Memphis military hospital, established in 1863 in the former Cumberland Hotel Hospital, “Pinkney.” In addition to surgeons and enlisted stewards and nurses, the Red Rover had a contingent of volunteer nurses, drawn from the Catholic Sisters of the Holy Cross,


who were not officially part of the military; they were the first women to serve in that capacity for the U.S. Navy. Although the riverboats provided an effective and much-needed service, their activities were uncoordinated to the point of near chaos. Hospital vessels were operated by four independent administrative organizations—the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Army, the U.S. Sanitary Commission, and the Western Sanitary Commission. The four were not really at odds with one another, but each managed its own operations, bought or leased its own ships, bought supplies, and hired its own nurses. The military did supply surgeons, and the War Department also stationed military police on the boats to make sure that the men being transported were genuinely sick or wounded and not merely malingering. Before 1862 was out, the Union had contracted for 15 riverboats, and between 1862 and 1865, 150,000 Union casualties were taken to hospitals by water. Shorter distances and better railways made waterborne transport less important along the East Coast, but the Navy Medical Department did operate in that arena as well. In the spring of 1862 USS Daniel Webster was refurbished under the direction of Frederick Law Olmstead and sent to move wounded soldiers from the Peninsula Campaign of 1862. It carried 6 medical students, 20 volunteer male nurses, 4 women assistants, 8 military officers, 5 U.S. Sanitary Commission members, and 90 convalescent soldiers in its maiden voyage as the first hospital ship on the East Coast. Eventually, the Union contracted for 17 coastal steamers to move the sick and wounded. The Confederacy never had either a large riverine or a large maritime fleet, and the Confederate naval medical corps totaled only 26 surgeons and 81 assistant surgeons (as compared to 3,236 surgeons in the rest of the Confederate military). After major maritime engagements, the Confederate wounded were frequently treated by Union surgeons, as occurred after the battle between CSS Alabama and USS Kearsarge, in which the latter took on the injured Southern sailors, and after the Battle of Mobile Bay, when Confederate sailors were taken to the Union hospital at Pensacola. The War Department kept meticulous medical records throughout the Civil War, but most Confederate military medical records were lost in the fires in Richmond in 1865, leaving that story sketchy at best. One significant naval contribution to Confederate medicine came from the blockade-runners, who were virtually the only source of drugs for the South during the conflict. They brought $170,933 worth of medicine into North Carolina alone, and during 1864 and 1865 General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia received essentially its entire supply of chloroform, morphine, quinine, paregoric, laudanum, digitalis, and medicinal alcohol via blockade-runners from Nassau and Bermuda. Jack McCallum See also Alabama vs. Kearsarge; Blockade of the Confederacy; Blockade-Runners; Mobile Bay, Battle of; Navy, CSA; Navy, U.S.; Philadelphia Naval Asylum; Porter, David Dixon; Ranks, Union and Confederate Navies; Riverine Warfare

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References Freemon, Frank. Gangrene and Glory: Medical Care during the American Civil War. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001. Gabriel, Richard A., and Karen S. Metz. A History of Military Medicine from the Renaissance through Modern Times. New York: Greenwood, 1992. Packard, Francis R. History of Medicine in the United States. New York: Paul B. Hoeber, 1931. Roddis, Louis H. A Short History of Nautical Medicine. New York: Paul B. Hoeber, 1941.

Memphis, First Battle of Event Date: June 6, 1862 In mid-May 1862, the U.S. Navy Mississippi Flotilla, commanded by Flag Officer Charles H. Davis, lay above Fort Pillow on the Mississippi River some 40 miles above Memphis, subjecting Confederate positions at Fort Pillow to a steady bombardment from mortar boats. During May 18–27 the seven steamers of Colonel Charles Ellet Jr.’s Mississippi Ram Fleet arrived. These tall, converted Ohio River steamers, conceived solely as rams with no ordnance, were the Union’s answer to the Confederate’s river rams, which had won the May 10 Battle of Plum Point Bend. Ellet was keen for an immediate blow against the Confederate rams located below Fort Pillow. As Davis resisted this action, Ellet laid plans to act alone. Davis questioned Ellet’s authority to do so, but Ellet answered with authorization from Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. Davis had planned his own attack on Fort Pillow, to take place on June 5 in concert with army troops. The Confederates preempted both Union schemes. On May 29–30, Confederate general Pierre G. T. Beauregard, deciding to save his 50,000 men at Corinth, abandoned that railhead to Major General Henry W. Halleck’s 120,000-man army and retired to a new line along the Tuscumbia River in Alabama. This move left Fort Pillow outflanked and untenable, and on the night of June 4 explosions announced that the Confederates were blowing up their guns and evacuating Pillow. The next day, June 5, 1862, Davis’s flotilla and Ellet’s rams moved south past Fort Pillow to attack the Confederates at Memphis, arriving above the city that same evening. Memphis, situated on bluffs above the river, was not fortified. Its defense rested on the eight vessels of Commodore James E. Montgomery’s River Defense Fleet, now anchored at the Memphis levee. The Confederate warships were badly outgunned by those of the Union flotilla, but unlike the five Union ironclads (the flagship Benton, Carondelet, St. Louis, Cairo, and Louisville), they had been converted to warships expressly as rams. They were not as strong as the Ellet rams, but their boilers had been lowered into their hulls, whereas the Ellet vessels had their boilers above the decks. Although

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Line engraving after a sketch by Alexander Simplot, published in “Harper’s Weekly” depicting the close of the Battle of Memphis, June 6, 1862. The steamer shown is either the Mingo or Lioness, the stern-wheelers of the Union Ram Fleet. (Naval History and Heritage Command)

the Union vessels were thus more vulnerable to enemy fire, their hulls could be greatly reinforced. The battle for Memphis began early on the morning of June 6. Thousands of Memphis citizens lined the shores to watch the engagement that would decide their city’s fate. At 4:20 a.m., Davis signaled the ships of his flotilla to raise anchor, and slowly the ironclads dropped downriver by their sterns. At 4:50 the Confederates also got under way and opened fire, which was returned by the stern guns of the Union flotilla’s ships. Although the day was clear, vision was soon obscured both by gun and coal smoke. Montgomery had hoped to replicate the Battle of Plum Point Bend by ramming and sinking the Union ironclads, but then out of the smoke there suddenly emerged two of the Ellet rams. Ellet had arranged four of his rams in line, above the ironclads, and when the Confederates first opened fire he signaled the three others to follow his flagship, the Queen of the West. But only his brother, Lieutenant Colonel Alfred Ellet, on the Monarch responded. These two Union rams, one following the other, now made for the advancing Confederate vessels. The leading Confederate ram, the Colonel Lovell, and the Union ram the Queen of the West appeared headed for a bows-on collision when one of the Confederate ship’s engines suddenly stopped, and it veered off. Moments later the Queen of the West smashed into the Colonel Lovell’s side, inflicting a mortal wound. The Confederate ram Sumter then struck the Queen of the West, crashing into its port

390 |â•‡ Memphis, First Battle of

wheelhouse. Foolishly Ellet ran out on deck, where he was wounded in the leg by a Confederate pistol shot. Alfred Ellet’s Monarch then smashed into the Colonel Lovell, which, badly damaged, promptly sank with all but five of its crew. The Queen of the West, meanwhile, was able to ground on the Arkansas shore. The remaining Confederate rams then concentrated on the Monarch. The Sterling Price got in a glancing blow, while the General Beauregard came up on the Union ram from the opposite side. But at the last possible moment, Alfred Ellet was able to slip his vessel between the two Confederate rams, which then collided with each other. The Monarch then rammed the General Beauregard. By this time, accurate fire from the Union ironclads was exacting a toll on the Confederate ships. One shell burst the General Beauregard’s boilers, and that ship promptly sank. The disabled General Sterling Price also went down in shallow water. The remaining five Confederate vessels now attempted to escape. With the Union vessels in pursuit, the battle disappeared downriver. During the running fight spanning about 10 miles, the Confederate ram Little Rebel, Montgomery’s flagship, was hit below the waterline. As it made for shoal water, the Monarch rammed it. This blow pushed the Little Rebel up on the shore, enabling Montgomery and his crew to escape. Union cannon fire disabled both the General Bragg and General Sumter. The commander of the General Thompson grounded his vessel on the Arkansas shore, where he set it afire. All but one of the eight Confederate vessels had been destroyed. Only the General Van Dorn managed to escape to Vicksburg. Meanwhile, Memphis surrendered. The naval Battle of Memphis was perhaps the most lopsided Union naval victory of the war. The Union suffered only four casualties and one badly damaged ram. Colonel Charles Ellet Jr. died two weeks later, his superficial wound complicated by dysentery and measles. At slight cost, the Union had ended Confederate naval power on the Mississippi River and added additional vessels to the Union flotilla; the battle also gave to the Union the fifth largest city in the Confederacy, along with important manufacturing resources. Included in the latter was a Confederate naval yard, which soon became a principal Union base. The Confederates had also been forced to destroy the one ironclad, the Tennessee, which they had been building there. A second uncompleted ironclad, the Arkansas, had been removed downriver before the battle to prevent its capture. Control of Memphis also brought the Union control of four key rail lines, and the mighty Mississippi River was now open all the way to Vicksburg. Spencer C. Tucker See also Arkansas, CSS; Baron de Kalb, USS; Benton, USS; Cairo, USS; Cairo-Class River Ironclads; Carondelet, USS; Davis, Charles Henry; Ellet, Alfred Washington; Ellet, Charles, Jr.; Flotilla; Fort Pillow, Tennessee; Ironclads, Confederate; Ironclads, Union; Island Number 10, Battle of; Mississippi River; Mississippi River Defense Fleet; Plum Point Bend, Battle of; Queen of the West, USS; Ram Fleet, U.S.; Riverine Warfare; Tennessee, CSS

Mercer, Samuelâ•‡ | 391

References Milligan, John D. Gunboats Down the Mississippi. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1965. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 23. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1910.

Mercer, Samuel Birth Date: 1799 Death Date: March 6, 1862 U.S. Navy officer. Samuel Mercer was born in Maryland in 1799, and received a midshipman’s warrant on March 4, 1815. He was promoted to lieutenant on January 13, 1825, and to commander on September 8, 1841. He commanded the Lawrence on blockade duty during the Mexican-American War (1846–1848). Promoted to captain on September 14, 1855, Mercer commanded in early April 1861 the powerful steam frigate Powhatan, then at the Brooklyn Navy Yard undergoing extensive refit following a long cruise. The Powhatan soon was at the center of two proposed simultaneous and conflicting expeditions. The first was to be commanded by Gustavus V. Fox with the mission of relieving Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. The second would be under Lieutenant David D. Porter to relieve Fort Pickens in Pensacola, Florida. Mercer had written orders from Gideon Welles directing him to take the Powhatan to Charleston and assist Fox, but Porter, Secretary of State William H. Seward, and Army captain Montgomery Meigs met with President Abraham Lincoln, without Welles’s knowledge, and secured written orders from him for the Fort Pickens expedition. The trio explained that the plan must be kept secret from the Navy Department, the clerks of which were assumed to be Southern sympathizers. Porter guaranteed success if he were given command of the Powhatan in place of the more senior Mercer, and Lincoln agreed. As Lincoln, Welles, and Seward, who had put together the Fort Pickens expedition, attempted to sort out the confusion, Porter convinced Mercer and Captain Andrew H. Foote, commander of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, to give him the ship. Over a span of several days, its engines were quickly reassembled and the ship was rerigged. A telegram countermanding the order and returning command to Mercer was delivered to Porter after the ship was already under way on the afternoon of April 6; Porter simply ignored the order and continued to Pensacola, dooming any chance of success for Fox’s Charleston expedition. When war officially began, Mercer took command of the newly recommissioned steam frigate Wabash in the Coast Blockading Squadron, later the Atlantic

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Blockading Squadron, under the command of Commodore Silas H. Stringham. In the summer of 1861, the Wabash took five Confederate ships. On August 29, 1861, Mercer and the Wabash participated in the successful Union operations against Hatteras Inlet, North Carolina. As a consequence of his age, Mercer was removed from active command on his return. He continued to serve on the Navy’s Retiring Board until his death in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on March 6, 1862. Wesley Moody See also Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Brooklyn Navy Yard; Foote, Andrew Hull; Fort Pickens, Florida; Fort Sumter, South Carolina; Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, Relief Efforts and Beginning of the Civil War; Fox, Gustavus Vasa; Hatteras Inlet, Union Assault on; Lincoln, Abraham; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Pensacola Navy Yard; Porter, David Dixon; Powhatan, USS; Stringham, Silas Horton; Welles, Gideon

References Porter, David Dixon. The Naval History of the Civil War. 1886; reprint, New York: Dover, 1998. Swanberg, W. A. First Blood: The Story of Fort Sumter. New York: Scribner, 1957. Tucker, Spencer C. Andrew Foote: Civil War Admiral on Western Waters. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000.

Merrimack, USS See Virginia, CSS

Mervine, William Birth Date: March 14, 1791 Death Date: September 15, 1868 U.S. Navy officer. Born on March 14, 1791, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, William Mervine received a midshipman’s warrant on January 16, 1809. During the War of 1812, Mervine was stationed at Sackets Harbor, New York. He was promoted to lieutenant on February 4, 1815; to commander on June 12, 1834; and to captain on September 8, 1841. During the Mexican-American War (1846–1848), Mervine commanded the frigate Savannah and took part in the capture of Monterey, California, on July 7, 1847. Mervine commanded the Pacific Squadron from September 1856 to October 1860. At the beginning of the Civil War, Mervine was 70 years old and had been in the navy for 51 years: 24 years of sea service, 2 years spent in assignments ashore, and 25 years awaiting orders in a navy with too many officers for available assignments.

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With the beginning of the Civil War and President Abraham Lincoln’s proclamation on April 19, 1861, of a naval blockade on the coasts of the Confederate States of America, Mervine was assigned command of the Gulf Blockading Squadron on May 6. He took up station in the Gulf of Mexico on June 8. To cover the vast area from Key West, Florida, west to the Rio Grande in Texas, Mervine had only 15 ships. His problems were compounded by the loss of the Pensacola Navy Yard at the beginning of the war, leaving him only the base at Key West. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles was displeased, however, when Confederate forces occupied Ship Island, south of Biloxi in Mississippi Sound, that July, although on September 16 the Confederates abandoned it, and the next day Union forces took possession. Ship Island subsequently became a major base for the squadron. Mervine’s perceived lack of aggressiveness, however, led Welles to relieve him from his command on September 6, 1861. Captain William McKean assumed command from Mervine on September 22. Mervine requested a court of inquiry into his recall, but Welles refused. Mervine was placed on the retired list on December 21, 1861. He was promoted to commodore on the retired list on July 16, 1862, and to rear admiral on the retired list on July 25, 1866. From late 1862 into 1865 he served on various navy boards. Mervine died in Utica, New York, on September 15, 1868. Michael R. Hall and Spencer C. Tucker See also Blockade of the Confederacy; Fort Pickens, Florida; Gulf Blockading Squadron; Gulf of Mexico; Lincoln, Abraham; McKean, William Wister; Pensacola Navy Yard; Sackets Harbor Naval Station; Ship Island, Mississippi; Welles, Gideon

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Michigan, USS The first iron-hulled warship in the U.S. Navy. Designed as a steam paddle-frigate of exceptional speed and power, the Michigan was intended to redress the balance of naval power on the northwest frontier following tensions between the United States and Great Britain. Launched in December 1843 at Erie, Pennsylvania, and fitted for service on the Upper Great Lakes, the Michigan was 582 tons burden, 167.5 feet in length, and 27 feet in breadth. It was capable of 14 knots cruising speed and was pierced to mount up to 18 32-pounders and 8-inch guns.

394 |â•‡ Michigan, USS

By the autumn of 1844, following delivery to the navy, the Michigan was armed with two 8-inch and four 32-pounder guns. This far exceeded naval limitations set forth by the informal Rush-Bagot Agreement, which limited both size and armament of naval vessels on the Great Lakes following the War of 1812. However, the ship was seen as a necessity to counter British naval strength. As fate would have it, the Michigan sailed into a peaceful atmosphere brought on by the WebsterAshburton Treaty. The Michigan thus began its 89-year patrol of the Great Lakes shorn of all of its heavy weaponry save one 8-inch pivot gun. This demonstrated peaceful intent, if not exact compliance with Rush-Bagot. Throughout the ship’s long career it was involved in many pivotal events, including the death of James Strang and destruction of his Mormon sect on Beaver Island. During the Civil War, there were several Confederate plans to seize the Michigan. Confederate Navy lieutenant William H. Murdaugh proposed to Secretary of the Navy Stephen R. Mallory that four naval officers make their way to Canada and purchase a small steamer. Then, armed with revolvers and cutlasses, they would seize the Michigan by boarding and, before destroying the ship, employ it to destroy locks and U.S. merchant shipping on the Great Lakes. Although approved by the Confederate Navy Department, the scheme was apparently vetoed by President Jefferson Davis, who feared that this violation of Canadian neutrality might upset the British government sufficiently to halt the building of ships in England for the Confederacy. In the spring of 1864 there were persistent rumors of a Confederate attempt to seize the Michigan, then helping to guard Confederate prisoners held at Johnson’s Island at Lake Erie near Sandusky, Ohio. On September 19, 1864, following a plan developed by a secret agent in the Great Lakes area, Confederate Army captain Charles H. Cole and 19 armed Confederates under Acting Master John Y. Beall, posing as passengers, captured the U.S. steamer Philo Parsons on Lake Erie. They then took it to Middle Bass Island. There approached by the steamer Island Queen, the Confederates took that ship and then burned it. They then offloaded the passengers and cargo on Middle Bass Island before proceeding to Sandusky. Meanwhile, Commander J. C. Carter, the captain of the Michigan, learned about Cole and had him arrested. As Beall and his men approached Sandusky, the prearranged signals with Cole were thus not given, and finding themselves vastly outnumbered, Beall and his men sailed the Philo Parsons to Sandwich, Connecticut, where they burned it and then escaped. Late in 1864 a Southern sympathizer, Dr. James Bates, purchased the new ship Georgian at Toronto, acting on behalf of Confederate agent Jacob Thompson. Thompson’s plan was to seize the Michigan and destroy U.S. shipping on the Great Lakes. Once again, the plan involved Beall. The Georgian might easily have been converted into a commerce raider, but Union agents, warned in early November of what was afoot, kept the ship under close surveillance, and

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nothing came of the scheme. The Georgian was eventually laid up and sold to another party. The Michigan was later involved in the suppression of mining strikes in Michigan, the 1866 Fenian invasion of Canada, and the rescue of ships in distress on the Great Lakes. Renamed the Wolverine in 1905, the ship remained in service until May 1912. It was scrapped in 1949, despite attempts by preservationists to save it. Bradley Rodgers and Spencer C. Tucker See also Davis, Jefferson Finis; Loyall, Benjamin Pollard; Mallory, Stephen Russell

References Rodgers, Bradley A. Guardian of the Great Lakes: The U.S. Paddle Frigate Michigan. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996. U.S. Navy Department, Naval History Division. Civil War Naval Chronology, 1861– 1865. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971.

Minnesota, USS U.S. Navy warship. Laid down at the Washington Navy Yard in May 1854, the Minnesota was launched on December 1, 1855, and commissioned on May 21, 1857. At 3,307 tons, it was 264 feet, 9 inches, in length on the waterline, with a beam of 51 feet, 4 inches, and a maximum draft of 23 feet, 10 inches. Propelled by a single screw, it had a 2-cylinder horizontal double-trunk engine and 4 boilers, and was capable of 5.5 knots under steam and 12.5 knots under sail. With a single funnel amidships, the 3-masted Minnesota carried a full ship rig. It had a crew complement of 646 officers and men. Although this varied during the life of the ship, at the beginning of the Civil War the Minnesota had a powerful armament of 1 10-inch and 28 IX-inch Dahlgren guns, and 14 8-inch guns, all smoothbores. It also carried 2 21-pounder and 2 12-pounder Dahlgren smoothbore boat howitzers. The Minnesota first saw service in the East India Squadron during 1857–1859. Placed back in commission in May 1861, the frigate was the flagship of the Atlantic Blockading Squadron, and its successor North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, until the end of the war. The Minnesota took part in the capture of Hatteras Inlet (August 28–29, 1861) and in the Battle of Hampton Roads (March 8–9, 1862). In the latter battle, the Minnesota ran aground on March 8 and was damaged by long-range gunfire from CSS Virginia, with three of its crew killed. Destruction of the Union flagship was the chief aim of the Virginia when it steamed into the Roads the next day, until USS Monitor intervened. The Minnesota was refloated on March 10. The Minnesota was undamaged in an attack off Newport News, Virginia, on April 9, 1864, by the Confederate torpedo boat Squib, which was armed with a

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spar torpedo. The screw frigate took part in the two attacks on Fort Fisher, North Carolina (December 24–25, 1864, and January 13–15, 1865), losing 15 killed in the second, successful Union assault. During the war the Minnesota took 22 prizes, 2 of which were destroyed. Decommissioned on January 1868, the ship served as a gunnery training ship at New York during 1875–1895. It was stricken from the navy list on July 12, 1901, and sold to a Boston firm, and then burned for scrap at Eastport, Maine. Spencer C. Tucker See also Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Blockade of the Confederacy; Fort Fisher Campaign; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Hatteras Inlet, Union Assault on; Monitor, USS; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Spar Torpedo; Squib, CSS; Torpedoes; Virginia, CSS; Washington Navy Yard

References Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. II, Vol. 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1921. U.S. Navy Department, Naval History Division. Civil War Naval Chronology, 1861– 1865. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971.

Mississippi, CSS Unfinished Confederate ironclad. Asa F. and Nelson Tift designed the Mississippi and constructed it at Jefferson City, Louisiana, just north of New Orleans. The ship was laid down on October 14, 1861, and launched on April 19, 1862, less than a week before its destruction. The Mississippi was some 1,400 tons and measured 260 feet in length, with a beam of 58 feet and draft of 12 feet, 6 inches. Armor protection ranged from 1.25 to 3.75 inches. The ship was to be propelled by three screws. Although the engines were never installed, it was projected to be capable of 14 knots. The ship was pierced for 24 gun ports, 10 on each side and 2 each forward and stern. Its intended armament, never mounted, was to consist of four 7-inch rifled pieces on pivot mounts and 16 other guns. The projected crew complement was some 300 men. Work on the ironclad was incomplete when Union forces opened the New Orleans campaign. The ship had yet to receive all its iron plating, and much of what was in place was yet to be bolted down. On April 24, 1862, as the ships of Flag Officer David G. Farragut’s West Gulf Blockading Squadron ran past Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip on the lower Mississippi and approached New Orleans, Confederate Navy commander Arthur Sinclair, designated as the ironclad’s commanding officer, made a last-minute effort to get it upriver. Some 500 workers

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loaded armor, equipment, and provisions aboard the ship, but the promised steam tugs necessary to move the ship upriver never arrived. On April 25, with cannonading announcing the passage of Union ships past the Confederate batteries at Chaumette and nothing now standing between Farragut’s ships and the Mississippi, Sinclair fired it, using 1,000 pounds of powder supplied by New Orleans Confederate Army commander Major General Mansfield Lovell. Sinclair called the Mississippi “a formidable ship, the finest of the sort I ever saw in my life.” The Confederates also scuttled the ironclad CSS Louisiana downriver, rather than see it fall into Union hands. The timing of Farragut’s New Orleans campaign was indeed propitious, for had the Confederates been able to complete the two ironclads, Farragut would most likely not have made it to New Orleans in April 1862, and the Union capture of the Crescent City would have been a good ways off. Spencer C. Tucker See also Farragut, David Glasgow; Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s Run Past; Ironclads, Confederate; Louisiana, CSS; Mississippi River; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; Riverine Warfare; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. Still, William N., Jr. Iron Afloat: The Story of the Confederate Armorclads. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1985. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. II, Vol. 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1921. U.S. Navy Department, Naval History Division. Civil War Naval Chronology, 1861– 1865. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971.

Mississippi, USS Highly successful steam-powered side-wheeler U.S. Navy warship. The Mississippi was laid down at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on August 10, 1839; launched on May 5, 1841; and commissioned on December 22, 1841. The Mississippi (along with its short-lived sister the Missouri, which caught fire and blew up at Gibraltar in August 1843) was the navy’s first practical, nonexperimental steamer. Designated a steam frigate, its side-wheel and sail arrangement dominated standard navy design for almost two decades. Captain Matthew C. Perry was involved in the design and construction of, what was at that time, the longest ship built for the U.S. Navy: 229 feet in overall length, 40 feet in breadth, and 21 feet, 9 inches, in draft. At 1,732 tons (3,220 tons displacement), the Mississippi had a wooden hull strengthened against “hogging” by a novel system of trussing with iron straps,

398 |â•‡ Mississippi Marine Brigade

and its powerful side-lever engines were a first for an American ship. Original armament included 2 10-inch/120-pounder pivot guns and 10 8-inch/68-pounder broadside guns. Citing its reliability and relatively good coal consumption, Perry favored the Mississippi over newer steam warships. The ship performed up to his exacting expectations in the Mexican-American War (1846–1848), particularly at Veracruz. Following service in the U.S. Mediterranean Squadron during 1849–1851, the ship transported Hungarian leader Louis Kossuth to the United States after his defeat in the Hungarian revolution by the Austrians and the Russians. Commodore Perry selected the Mississippi as his flagship in expeditions to Japan during 1852–1854, resulting in the “opening” of that country to the West. The steamer then served in the Far East during 1857–1860. During the Civil War the Mississippi again proved its worth in blockade operations against Key West in June 1861. In Flag Officer David G. Farragut’s West Gulf Blockading Squadron, it took part in the April 24, 1862, passage of Confederate forts Jackson and St. Philip at the mouth of the Mississippi to New Orleans. Its heavy draft proved the frigate’s undoing, however. Then under the command of Captain Melancton Smith, it ran hard aground during Farragut’s operation against Port Hudson on March 14, 1863. Despite every effort, it could not be brought off and was fired and abandoned to prevent its capture; the ship blew up when the flames reached its magazines. F. Michael Angelo See also Blockade of the Confederacy; Farragut, David Glasgow; Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s Run Past; Mississippi River; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; Philadelphia Navy Yard; Port Hudson, Louisiana, Action at; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Canney, Donald L. The Old Steam Navy. 2 vols. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1990, 1993. Silverstone, Paul H. The Sailing Navy, 1775–1854. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2001. Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989.

Mississippi Marine Brigade Union army unit organized in early 1863 to combat guerrillas along the Mississippi River. During the early autumn of 1862, Confederate forces increasingly harassed Union naval and commercial traffic on the western rivers. Lieutenant Colonel Alfred Ellet, commander of the U.S. Ram Fleet, urged the creation of a mobile landing force to counter these attacks. Rear Admiral David D. Porter, commander

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of the navy’s Mississippi Squadron, agreed that such a force was needed as long as it was under his command but paid for by the War Department. In November 1862 Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton approved the scheme, promoted Ellet to brigadier general, and ordered him to organize the Mississippi Marine Brigade (MMB). The brigade slowly began to take shape that winter. Ellet acquired several steamboats and modified them with increased protection and special landing ramps. The MMB soon had a fleet of five transports, a quartermaster and commissary boat, and a hospital ship, as well as two small steam tugs and six coal barges. Each transport could carry 125 cavalrymen and their horses, 250 infantry, and a battery of artillery. Recruiting men for the new unit proved challenging. At full strength, the brigade’s infantry regiment, cavalry battalion, four batteries of artillery, and boat crews totaled more than 2,000 men. Despite a recruiting drive that emphasized its relatively comfortable living conditions, the brigade was still short 500 men in February 1863. Therefore, Stanton transferred men from the 18th, 59th, and 63rd Illinois Infantry regiments and the Ram Fleet to the MMB. Although the MMB’s first operation was on the Tennessee River in April 1863, it largely operated on the Mississippi River between Memphis, Tennessee, and Port Hudson, Louisiana. Most of the brigade’s efforts were directed against Confederate guerrillas and raiding parties. The brigade used its transports to land troops in areas suspected of hiding enemy guerrillas and supplies. After searching the immediate countryside for Confederate forces, the brigade’s men would return to their transports, remove or destroy any Confederate supplies they had discovered, and move to a new area. Controversy plagued the MMB’s operations from the start. Putting an army brigade under navy control proved awkward. The brigade often found itself without supplies because neither service felt responsible for it. Ellet’s habit of ignoring or exceeding his orders further complicated matters, and relations between Ellet and Porter soured quickly. Soon there were complaints that the brigade was spending more time plundering river towns and plantations than hunting guerrillas. On August 27, 1863, the War Department ordered the MMB back to army control, although Porter was not informed of the change until October 24. While Stanton had supported the brigade from the beginning, many army officers thought that it was an expensive and inefficient unit. In particular, Major General Ulysses S. Grant, commander of the Army of the Tennessee, wanted the brigade’s transports for general use. In the face of mounting criticism and with the brigade reduced to little more than 600 men, Stanton finally agreed to disband it. This occurred on August 3, 1864. Richard F. Kehrberg See also Amphibious Warfare; Ellet, Alfred Washington; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Porter, David Dixon; Ram Fleet, U.S.; Riverine Warfare; Tennessee River

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References Crandall, Warren D., and Isaac D. Newel. History of the Ram Fleet and the Mississippi Marine Brigade in the War for the Union on the Mississippi and Its Tributaries: The Story of the Ellets and Their Men. St. Louis: Buschart Bros., 1907. Hearn, Chester G. Ellet’s Brigade: The Strangest Outfit of All. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006.

Mississippi River Second-longest river in the Unites States. Some 2,340 miles long, the Mississippi River begins at Lake Itasca in Clearwater County, Minnesota, in the northwestern part of the state. From there it flows generally south, past Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. The Mississippi forms the state boundaries of 10 states between Minnesota and Louisiana. The river empties into the Gulf of Mexico, south of New Orleans, in Plaquemines Parish. It derives its name from the Ojibwa word misi-ziibi, meaning “great river.” The river drains an area encompassing 1.151 million square miles; its major tributaries include several large waterways, including the Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas rivers. Subject to frequent flooding, the Mississippi River has been repeatedly dammed over the years. There are also many locks and flood walls built along its course. The widest portion of the river is near Grand Rapids, Minnesota, where it helps form a lake that is an astounding seven miles wide. Because of dams and other flood-control features, parts of the Upper Mississippi do not flow freely. The Mississippi River has been an integral part of U.S. economic and agricultural development for more than two centuries. Its long river valley and periodic flooding have provided rich, fertile soil that has helped make the United States the world’s largest agricultural producer. It has also been a major transportation conduit, moving people, agricultural commodities, and finished goods into and out of the Gulf of Mexico and all points in between. Its extensive tributary complex has ensured that river traffic can move freely far into the interior, and in both easterly and westerly directions. The river has also given rise to many towns and numerous large cities, including Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota; St. Louis, Missouri; Memphis, Tennessee; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and New Orleans, Louisiana. Life along the Mississippi, both in the North and South, has given rise to its own unique culture, which is symbiotic with the river itself. In the state of Mississippi, the area between the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers, known as the Mississippi Delta, has a particularly rich cultural heritage. The Mississippi is generally divided into two sections: the Upper Mississippi, from Lake Itasca to Cairo, Illinois (where it is joined by the Ohio River); and the Lower Mississippi, from Cairo to the Gulf of Mexico. Many Native American tribes called the Mississippi Valley home; all

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had an abiding respect for the powerful river. The first Europeans to explore parts of the Mississippi were Frenchmen Louis Joliet and Jacques Marquette in the last half of the 17th century. At the time of the Civil War, much of the Mississippi River was navigable to large ships, and indeed it had witnessed extensive steamboat traffic since about 1830. Because of the river’s far reach and its importance to both commerce and agricultural pursuits, both the Union and Confederacy sought to control the waterway at almost any cost. Following Union operations in the northern part of the river against Island Number 10, Fort Pillow, and Memphis, as well as the capture of New Orleans at the river’s mouth, Union land and naval forces combined to take Vicksburg in July 1863. Port Hudson, south of Vicksburg, fell to Union troops shortly thereafter, giving the Union control over the entire Mississippi. This cut off the Trans-Mississippi West from the rest of the Confederacy, cemented the support of the northwest for the Union cause, and greatly advanced the eventual Union triumph in 1865. Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr. See also Amphibious Warfare; Anaconda Strategy; Arkansas River; Cairo Naval Station; Cumberland River; Fort Pillow, Tennessee; Gulf of Mexico; Island Number 10, Battle of; Memphis, First Battle of; Mississippi River Defense Fleet; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Missouri River; Mound City Naval Station; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; Ohio River; Plum Point Bend, Battle of; Port Hudson, Louisiana, Siege of; Riverine Warfare; Strategy, Union Naval; Tennessee River; Vicksburg Campaign; Yazoo River

References Ambrose, Stephen E., and Douglas Brinkley. The Mississippi and the Making of a Nation. Des Moines, IA: National Geographic Society, 2002. Coombe, Jack D. Thunder along the Mississippi: The River Battles That Split the Confederacy. New York: Sarpedon, 1996.

Mississippi River Defense Fleet The Confederate River Defense Fleet, as it was officially known, consisted of some 14 lightly armed and poorly armored gunboats. Purchased at New Orleans and armed by the Confederate War Department, these were almost all side-wheeler steamers, although at least one was a stern-wheeler. Little information is available about them, although the most powerful included the Colonel Lovell (521 tons; 162 feet in length; 30 feet, 10 inches, in beam; 11 feet in draft; and possibly armed with four 8-inch guns) and the General Beauregard (454 tons; 161 feet, 8 inches, in length; 30 feet in beam; and a 10-foot depth of hull; it mounted four 8-inch and one 42-pounder guns). The Defiance was also comparable in size (544 tons; 178 feet in length; 29 feet, 5 inches, in beam; and a 10-foot, 11-inch depth of hull; but

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it mounted only a single 32-pounder). We know little about the specifications of the others. The gunboats were under the control of the army and were commanded by former riverboat captains James E. Montgomery and J. H. Townsend. The crews came from civilian steamboats and fought on the condition that they would not be subject to the orders of naval officers. The ships were given double pine bulkheads bolted together and stuffed with compressed cotton, which led to their appellation of “cottonclads.” For the most part mounting only one or two guns each, they were also somewhat faster and more agile than their Union counterparts. A number had reinforced bows of four-inch oak and one-inch iron, enabling them to act as rams. Six of the ships—the Defiance, General Breckenridge, General Lovell, Resolute, Stonewall Jackson, and Warrior—were all lost in the lower Mississippi River in the defense of New Orleans in April 1862. In the Battle of Plum Point Bend, on May 9, 1862, Montgomery led the Little Rebel (flagship), General Bragg, General Sterling Price, General Earl Van Dorn, General Sumter, General Thompson, General Beauregard, and Colonel Lovell in an effort to cut out or destroy a Union mortar boat and its covering gunboat. In the ensuing fight, the Union ironclads Cincinnati and Mound City were badly damaged, but the General Sumter, Colonel Lovell, and General Earl Van Dorn all sustained hits in their boilers and had numerous personnel casualties. In the Battle of Memphis on June 5, 1862, the Union ships sank the Colonel Lovell, Beauregard, and General Sterling Price off Memphis, then chased the five remaining Confederate ships downriver. In the ensuing 10-mile-long fight, they rammed and forced ashore the Little Rebel, enabling Montgomery and his crew to escape, and they disabled both the General Bragg and General Sumter. The commander of the General Thompson grounded his gunboat on the Arkansas shore, and then blew it up. Of the eight Confederate vessels in the battle, only the General Earl Van Dorn managed to make it to Vicksburg. It was burned to prevent capture at Yazoo City, Mississippi, on June 26, 1862. Spencer C. Tucker See also Cincinnati, USS; Cottonclads; Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s Run Past; Memphis, First Battle of; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Mortar Boats; Mound City, USS; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; Plum Point Bend, Battle of; Ram Fleet, U.S.; Riverine Warfare

References Coombe, Jack D. Thunder along the Mississippi: The River Battles That Split the Confederacy. New York: Sarpedon, 1996. Slagle, Jay. Ironclad Captain: Seth Ledyard Phelps and the U.S. Navy, 1841–1864. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1996. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

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Mississippi Sound Large body of water, part of the northern Gulf of Mexico, which stretches from current-day Lake Borgne, Louisiana, in the west to Dauphin Island, Alabama, in the east. Because the area is bounded by the Mississippi shoreline to the north and a series of barrier islands to the south, it is referred to as a “sound,” which usually refers to a relatively narrow water passage between two bodies of land or islands. Among the islands that sit at the southern perimeter of the sound are Cat, Ship, Horn, Petit Bois, and Dauphin. Beyond these barrier islands lies the open Gulf of Mexico. Port cities located on the Mississippi Sound include Gulfport, Biloxi, and Pascagoula, all located along the State of Mississippi’s coastline. Immediately to the east of the Mississippi Sound lies Mobile Bay. The sound is approximately 95 miles long and from 7 to 15 miles wide. Over the years, shipping channels have been dredged between the barrier islands and the mainland coastline to facilitate shipping and navigation from the open Gulf into the sound and the ports at Gulfport and Pascagoula. The Union blockaded access to and from the Mississippi Sound during the Civil War, which severely disrupted the Southern economy. Gulfport was an important port city along the central Gulf Coast, and today it is Mississippi’s second-largest city. During much of 1861 and into early 1862, the Mississippi Sound was covered by the Gulf Blockading Squadron. In February 1862 the squadron was broken in two, with the West Gulf Blockading Squadron then responsible for blockading the coast from the Rio Grande River to Pensacola, Florida, including Mississippi Sound. Mississippi Sound, like Mobile Bay and most of the northern Gulf of Mexico, is quite shallow, ranging from 12 to 20 feet or so. This makes the area prone to devastating tidal surges during hurricanes, which regularly affect the northern Gulf of Mexico in the summer and fall. In 2005 Mississippi Sound was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, which struck just east of New Orleans. The principal tributaries draining into the Mississippi Sound are the Pascagoula, Escatawpa, Tchoutacabouffa, Biloxi, Wolf, and Jordan rivers. Mississippi Sound also contains several bays, including St. Louis Bay, Biloxi Bay, Pascagoula Bay, and Grand Bay. Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr. See also Blockade of the Confederacy; Gulf Blockading Squadron; Gulf of Mexico; Mobile Bay; New Orleans, Louisiana; Pensacola Navy Yard; Ship Island, Mississippi; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Gore, Robert H. The Gulf of Mexico: A Treasury of Resources in the American Mediterranean. Sarasota, FL: Pineapple, 1992. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

404 |â•‡ Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy

Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy Name of the large U.S. Navy command operating in the waters of the Mississippi River Valley after October 1, 1862. The Mississippi Squadron grew out of the Western Gunboat Flotilla established at the start of the war. At the beginning of the Civil War, U.S. secretary of the navy Gideon Welles and other leaders in Washington were preoccupied with operations along the eastern seaboard, principally in establishing the naval blockade. The West was an important theater of the war, however, as control of its waterways would be vital to a Union victory. Indeed, the so-called Anaconda Plan called for bisecting the South along its great rivers in joint army-navy operations. The great western rivers were for the most part shallow and winding, precluding the use of sailing vessels. Broad-beam, shallow-draft vessels were required. The largest Union gunboats mounted as many as four guns forward and two aft, with others in broadsides. The Confederates also converted and built gunboats, but the South lacked the shipyards, skilled workers, adequate marine engines, and industrial works to make the heavy iron plate required. Its river gunboats were for the most part smaller and mounted fewer guns than those of the Union. Utilizing its superior manufacturing resources, the North was able both to place a larger number of betterbuilt gunboats onto the western waters and to get them there first. Cairo, Illinois, where the Ohio and Mississippi rivers meet, was an important strategic location that offered direct access to the river traffic of Illinois, Kentucky, and Missouri. From there Union gunboats could control both the Ohio and upper Mississippi. The army claimed jurisdiction over all western riverine operations. It purchased the first vessels for conversion into warships. The navy provided officers to supervise conversions and new construction. It also provided the guns and most of the personnel for the new warships. On May 16, 1861, Welles ordered Commander John Rodgers to the West to assist in “establishing a Naval Armament on the Mississippi and Ohio rivers.” The army was to furnish whatever Rodgers needed, with the exception of men and guns. Rodgers was subordinate to Major General George B. McClellan but reported to the Navy Department. McClellan gave him free hand, and during the course of the next few months Rodgers made great strides in creating an inland navy. By June 8 Rodgers had negotiated contracts to buy and convert three wooden side-wheel freight-and-passenger Ohio River steamers into gunboats. With five inches of oak to serve as protection against rifle fire, these became the timberclads Tyler, Lexington, and Conestoga. Their conversion was carried out at Louisville, Kentucky, and they entered service in August. Difficulties abounded, particularly in securing personnel to man the new warships. In August 1861 engineer James B. Eads signed a contract let by the army to build seven gunboats. In late July McClellan was called east, and Major General John C. Frémont arrived to command the newly created Department of the West

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at St. Louis. Rodgers, who had been left largely alone by McClellan, soon clashed with the imperious Frémont, who secured his replacement. At the end of August 1861 Welles replaced Rodgers with Captain Andrew H. Foote, who reached St. Louis on September 6. When Foote arrived in the West he found 9 ironclad gunboats and 38 mortar boats under construction. Foote and a growing number of naval officers supervised the completion of the ironclads and the training of their crews. Most of the new ironclads entered service in January 1862. The timberclads had already proved their worth in supporting an attack by Union troops under Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant at Belmont, Missouri, on November 7, 1861. Meanwhile, Frémont had clashed with President Abraham Lincoln and had in turn been replaced by Major General Henry W. Halleck. Foote, raised to flag officer rank in November, and Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant were anxious to begin operations, but the cautious Halleck imposed delays. Halleck finally relented, and the gunboats proved their worth in the battles of Fort Henry on the Tennessee River (February 6, 1862) and nearby Fort Donelson (February 13–16) on the Cumberland River. Two of the timberclads proved invaluable in supporting Grant in the Battle of Shiloh (April 6–7), while Foote cooperated with army forces under Major General John Pope in the taking of Island Number 10 (April 7). Foote had been wounded and never completely recovered from the rebuff suffered by his ironclads in the fighting for Fort Donelson. On May 9 he was replaced by Captain Charles H. Davis, who took command of the flotilla. Davis commanded it in the operations against Fort Pillow, including the Battle of Plum Point Bend (May 10), and then in the Battle of Memphis (June 6). The flotilla was renamed the Mississippi Squadron and transferred from army to navy control on October 1, 1862. David D. Porter replaced Davis in command with the rank of rear admiral on October 15. Porter immediately began reorganizing and vitalizing the command. He ordered the addition of small, lightly armored tinclads to the squadron. Porter also divided the rivers into patrol areas, each with heavier ironclads and support vessels. The Mississippi Squadron also included supply and repair ships. Porter worked well with his army counterparts, especially Major General Grant and Brigadier General William T. Sherman. The first major task for the squadron was taking Vicksburg and the opening of the Mississippi River. Following the success of that operation in July 1863, the squadron was engaged in the ill-fated Red River Expedition (March 10–May 22, 1864) a plan pushed by President Abraham Lincoln and Union general in chief Major General Halleck. Following this mission, the squadron patrolled the western waters until the end of the war. In September Porter assumed command of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron and was succeeded by Rear Admiral Samuel P. Lee. The Mississippi Squadron patrolled the western inland river system for the remainder of the war. Gary D. Joiner and Spencer C. Tucker

406 |â•‡ Missouri, CSS See also Amphibious Warfare; Anaconda Strategy; Belmont, Battle of; Conestoga, USS; Eads, James Buchanan; Flotilla; Foote, Andrew Hull; Fort Donelson, Battle of; Fort Henry, Battle of; Fort Pillow, Tennessee; Ironclads, Confederate; Ironclads, Union; Island Number 10, Battle of; Lee, Samuel Phillips; Lexington, USS; Lincoln, Abraham; Memphis, First Battle of; Mississippi River; Mississippi River Defense Fleet; Mortar Boats; Mound City Naval Station; Pittsburg Landing; Plum Point Bend, Battle of; Porter, David Dixon; Ram Fleet, U.S.; Red River Campaign; Riverine Warfare; Rodgers, John; Tennessee River; Timberclads; Tinclads; Tyler, USS; Vicksburg Campaign; Welles, Gideon

References Johnson, Robert Erwin. Rear Admiral John Rodgers, 1812–1882. Annapolis, MD: U.S. Naval Institute, 1967. Joiner, Gary D. Mr. Lincoln’s Brown Water Navy: The Mississippi Squadron. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007. Niven, John. Gideon Welles, Lincoln’s Secretary of the Navy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973. Shea, William L., and Terrence J. Winschel. Vicksburg Is the Key: The Struggle for the Mississippi River. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003. Tucker, Spencer C. Andrew Foote: Civil War Admiral on Western Waters. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000. West, Richard S., Jr. The Second Admiral: A Life of David Dixon Porter. New York: Coward-McCann, 1937.

Missouri, CSS Confederate Navy river ironclad, built at Shreveport, Louisiana. Closely patterned after CSS Arkansas, the Missouri was to be the first of a two-ship class, but the second ship was never built. Lieutenant Jonathan H. Carter had charge of the ironclad’s construction. The Missouri was laid down in December 1862; launched on April 14, 1863; and commissioned on September 12, 1863. Its tonnage is unknown, but the ship was 183 feet in overall length, with a beam of 53 feet, 8 inches; depth of 10 feet, 3 inches; and draft of 8 feet, 3 inches. The casemate was 130 feet, 6 inches, in length, and 11 feet, 6 inches, in height. The pilothouse was located at the front of the casemate, rising some 19 inches above it. Powered by two steam engines taken from the steamer Grand Era, the Missouri was propelled by a wheel set in the center of the ship’s stern. It was capable of a speed of 5.3 knots. Armor protection came in the form of 4.5-inch railroad rails held in place with railroad spikes, but the rails were laid too far apart to be truly effective against heavy Union guns. Crew complement is unknown. As with the Arkansas, the Missouri was pierced for 10 guns—2 forward, 3 on each side, and 2 aft—but in 1865 it mounted only 3: 1 XI-inch Dahlgren, 1 IX-inch Dahlgren, and an old 32-pounder. The guns had been taken from USS Harriet Lane, captured at Galveston, Texas.

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Once the Missouri was commissioned, Lieutenant Carter assumed command. On the night of September 4, 1864, Carter and part of the Missouri’s crew took part in an unsuccessful attempt to capture the U.S. gunboat Rattler in the Mississippi. Low water levels, in part the result of deliberate Confederate action to stymie the progress of U.S. rear admiral David D. Porter’s Mississippi Squadron up the Red River, prevented participation of the Missouri in the Red River Campaign. In March 1865 river levels allowed Carter to move the Missouri downriver to Alexandria, Louisiana, where he surrendered his ship to Union forces on June 3, 1865. The Missouri had the distinction of being the last Confederate ironclad to be surrendered in home waters. The Missouri was sold at Mound City, Illinois, on November 29, 1865. Spencer C. Tucker See also Arkansas, CSS; Carter, Jonathan H.; Galveston, Battle of; Harriet Lane, USS; Ironclads, Confederate; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Porter, David Dixon; Red River; Red River Campaign

References Jeter, Katherine Brash. A Man and His Boat: The Civil War Career and Correspondence of Lieutenant Jonathan H. Carter, CSN. Lafayette: Center for Louisiana Studies, University of Louisiana, 1996. Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. Still, William N., Jr. Iron Afloat: The Story of the Confederate Armorclads. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1985.

Missouri River A major tributary of the Mississippi River. The longest river in the United States during the 19th century, at some 2,540 miles in length, the Missouri River has its source at Brower’s Spring, in the Centennial Mountains of Montana, at an elevation of 9,030 feet. From there, the spring meets the confluence of the Madison, Jefferson, and Gallatin rivers (at Three Forks in southwestern Montana), where the Missouri River officially begins. From that point, the river flows south and east until it empties into the Mississippi River just north of St. Louis, Missouri. It traverses Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota; skirts Nebraska, Iowa, and Kansas; and traverses the entire breadth of Missouri, from Kansas City in the west to St. Louis in the east. The Missouri River basin is so extensive that it drains 529,350 square miles of territory. In the 20th century, various dam and channeling projects shortened the Missouri, so the river is now the nation’s second-longest river, behind the Mississippi. The Missouri River has more than 95 tributaries, which drain most of the Northern and Central Plains. The tributary system is so extensive that it drains a small portion of Canada’s Alberta and Saskatchewan provinces.

408 |â•‡ Missroon, John Stoney

The first Europeans to discover the river were the French explorers Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette in the 17th century. The river was extensively surveyed during the 1803–1806 Lewis and Clark Expedition. Prior to European settlement, the Missouri River basin was peopled by dozens of Native American Plains tribes. The river is known for its frequently muddy appearance, which is due not to pollution but rather to high amounts of shifting silt. In the flatlands it is a very broad river, prone to serious and periodic flooding. Parts of the river were used for the Pony Express (1860–1861) and were later used to complete the transcontinental railroad. On the upper reaches of the Missouri, paddle steamers regularly plied the waterway in the 19th century, which helped open the Dakotas and Montana to white settlement and trade. Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr. See also Cairo Naval Station; Mississippi River; Riverine Warfare

References Benson, N. G., ed. The Missouri River: The Resources, Their Uses and Values. Special Publication No. 8. Bethesda, MD: North Central Division of the American Fisheries Society, 1988. DeVoto, Bernard Augustine. The Journals of Lewis and Clark. New York: Mariner Books, 1997.

Missroon, John Stoney Birth Date: 1810 Death Date: October 23, 1865 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1810, John Stoney Missroon entered the U.S. Navy on a midshipman’s warrant of June 27, 1824. He was promoted to passed midshipman on February 24, 1830; to lieutenant on December 31, 1833; and to commander on September 14, 1855. At the beginning of 1861, Missroon had been in the navy for 36 years: 17 years in sea service, 8 in assignments ashore, and 11 years awaiting orders in a navy with too many officers for available assignments. Stationed at the Portsmouth Navy Yard at the beginning of the Civil War, Commander Missroon was one of a few South Carolina navy officers who remained loyal to the Union. In September 1861 Missroon received command of the sailing sloop Savannah and was assigned to the Atlantic Blockading Squadron. He then took up station off Savannah, Georgia. In early 1862 Missroon was assigned command of the new screw sloop Wachusett under construction at Boston and was assigned in March to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron at Hampton Roads, Virginia. Missroon then commanded

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Union warships operating in the York River as part of Union major general George B. McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign against Richmond. On April 23 Missroon requested that Flag Officer Louis M. Goldsborough relieve him because of his perceived inability to work with the difficult McClellan. Although he withdrew that request the same day, Goldsborough assigned the York River command to Commander William Smith on April 30. On July 16, 1862, Missroon was promoted directly to commodore, bypassing the rank of captain. Assigned to ordnance duty at the Boston (Charlestown) Navy Yard that same year, Missroon was serving in that post when he died in Charlestown, Massachusetts, on October 23, 1865. Spencer C. Tucker See also Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Boston Navy Yard; Goldsborough, Louis MalesÂ� herbes; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Portsmouth Navy Yard; Smith, William


Mitchell, John Kirkwood Birth Date: 1811 Death Date: 1889 Confederate Navy officer. Born in North Carolina in 1811, John Kirkwood Mitchell secured a midshipman’s warrant on February 1, 1825. He was promoted to passed midshipman on June 4, 1831; to lieutenant on December 22, 1835; and to commander on September 14, 1855. With the beginning of the Civil War, Mitchell resigned his commission on May 27, 1861. He was subsequently commissioned a commander in the Confederate Navy, with date of rank from March 26, 1861. Assigned to the New Orleans Station, Mitchell commanded the six-ship Confederate naval force on the lower Mississippi, consisting of the gunboats McRae (eight guns) and Jackson (two guns), and the launches No. 3 (one gun) and No. 6 (one gun). The other two Confederate ships were the ironclads Manassas and Louisiana, but only the ram Manassas, with a single gun, was operational at the time of the Union attempt to run past Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip and take New Orleans.

410 |â•‡ Mitchell, John Kirkwood

With the Union effort to force the lower Mississippi under way, Mitchell ordered the unfinished Louisiana towed down the river from above New Orleans and moored to the shore north of Fort St. Philip as a floating battery. A divided Confederate command structure plagued his effort to halt a Union advance upriver, and the ships of U.S. Navy flag officer David G. Farragut’s West Gulf Blockading Squadron defeated his forces. Mitchell himself was taken prisoner on the surrender of Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip on April 28, 1862. He was then confined as a prisoner of war at Fort Warren in Boston Harbor but was exchanged at Aiken Landing, Virginia, on August 5, 1862. Although a court of inquiry cleared Mitchell of any responsibility, the loss of New Orleans clouded his subsequent naval career and indeed the remainder of his life. Mitchell headed the important Confederate Navy Bureau of Orders and Detail during March 16, 1863–May 6, 1864, before assuming command of the James River Squadron, which position he held May 6, 1864–February 18, 1865. With 11 ships in his squadron and under heavy pressure from Secretary of the Navy Stephen R. Mallory to take action, Mitchell, on January 23, 1865, initiated the Battle of the James River (Battle of Trent’s Reach), an effort to trap part of the Union squadron in that river between his ships and Confederate batteries on shore. The effort ended in failure with the loss of two of his smaller ships, and damage to the ironclads Richmond and Virginia II. Rear Admiral Raphael Semmes replaced Mitchell three weeks later. Mitchell surrendered to Union forces at Greensboro, North Carolina, and was paroled there on April 28, 1865. He then returned to Richmond, Virginia. Seldom seen in public, he kept a vigilant watch for attacks on his Civil War record, especially in the defense of New Orleans. Mitchell died in Richmond in 1889. Spencer C. Tucker See also Farragut, David Glasgow; Floating Battery; Flotilla; Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s Run Past; Fort Warren, Massachusetts; Ironclads, Confederate; James River; James River Squadron, CSA; Louisiana, CSS; Mallory, Stephen Russell; Mississippi, CSS; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; Richmond, CSS; Richmond, Virginia; Riverine Warfare; Semmes, Raphael; Trent’s Reach, Battle of

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Coski, John M. Capital Navy: The Men, Ships and Operations of the James River Squadron. Campbell, CA: Savas, 1996. Register of Officers of the Confederate States Navy, 1861–1865: As Compiled and Revised by the Office of Naval Records and Library, United States Navy Department, 1931, from All Available Data. With a new introduction by John M. Carroll. Mattituck, NY: J. M. Carroll, 1981. [Originally published by the Naval Record and Library, U.S. Navy Department, in 1898 and revised in 1931.]

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Mobile, Alabama Important Confederate city and port, located in Alabama on the Gulf Coast at the head of Mobile Bay, just west of Pensacola, Florida, and the Florida Panhandle. The Mobile River runs through the city and empties into the bay. Founded in 1702 by the French as the first capital of French Louisiana, the city was later controlled by the British and the Spanish, before passing into U.S. possession in 1813. Prior to the 1862 Union capture of New Orleans, Mobile was the South’s second-largest port. In addition to its importance for manufacturing, Mobile was also a key hub for the lucrative cotton trade. Because Mobile sat at the northernmost portion of Mobile Bay, controlling the city was important; if it fell, Union forces had an unimpeded entryway into the interior of Alabama. Mobile’s 1860 population was 29,258, making it the Confederacy’s fourth largest city. The city was home to several shipbuilding concerns, one of which built the Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley in 1863. After New Orleans fell to Union forces in April 1862, Mobile became the South’s leading port along the Gulf Coast. Blockade-runners continued to use Mobile as the center of trade, mainly for cotton sent to Cuba. In return, they brought back with them badly needed military and civilian goods. Despite the Union blockade of the Gulf Coast, Mobile’s blockaderunners engaged in a brisk business. That changed, however, when Union forces seized control of Mobile Bay in August 1864, closing Mobile’s ports for the rest of the war. During March 25–April 12, 1865, Mobile was besieged by Union forces. The city surrendered on April 12, but not before numerous civilians had died. Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr. See also Blockade of the Confederacy; Blockade-Runners; Gulf of Mexico; H. L. Hunley, CSS; Mobile, Siege of; Mobile Bay; Mobile Bay, Battle of; New Orleans, Louisiana; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Hearn, Chester G. Mobile Bay and the Mobile Campaign: The Last Great Battles of the Civil War. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1993. Higginbotham, Jay. Mobile, City by the Bay. Mobile, AL: Azalea City Printer, 1968.

Mobile, Siege of Start Date: March 25, 1865 End Date: April 12, 1865 The Union siege of Mobile, Alabama, led to the capture of the last major port still under Confederate control. The Union operation began on March 25, 1865, and consisted principally of a siege of Spanish Fort by Union troops during March

412 |â•‡ Mobile, Siege of

26–April 8. Union major general Edward R. S. Canby’s campaign to close Mobile Bay to Confederate blockade-runners culminated with the capture of that port city on April 12. In late August 1864, Rear Admiral David G. Farragut had won a decisive naval action at the mouth of Mobile Bay, leading to the capture of Fort Gaines and Fort Morgan, which guarded the approaches to Mobile. Lack of available troops, however, forced postponement of the campaign for the city itself until March 1865. Reinforcements from the Ohio Valley gave Canby more than 16,000 men, sufficient strength to initiate the campaign. The U.S. Navy also provided about 20 warships under Rear Admiral Henry K. Thatcher to do battle with 4 Confederate warships. Canby divided his forces in order to oblige the Confederates to dissipate their defensive manpower. On March 26 Union major general Gordon Granger proceeded by water to Dannelly Mills on the Fish River. His command consisted of the 1st and 3rd divisions, as well as the 1st Brigade of the 2nd Division of his XIII Corps, and the 1st and 3rd divisions of the XVI Corps. Granger moved north along the bay’s eastern shore, pushing Confederate skirmishers into the works around Spanish Fort and investing the works on March 28. The Confederate position at Spanish Fort guarded the most direct water route to the city of Mobile. The city was protected by extensive earthworks on the land side, but the water side was weakly defended after the loss of the forts at the mouth of the bay. An enemy force that could gain the eastern shore at Spanish Fort would then have direct access to Mobile through the network of waterways at the mouths of the Alabama and Tensas rivers. Accordingly, the Confederates had placed 47 artillery pieces and 2,700 troops under the command of Brigadier General Randall L. Gibson in two miles of incomplete fieldworks around Spanish Fort. Gibson lacked sufficient troops to adequately man the defenses, however. He pleaded repeatedly but unsuccessfully with his superiors, especially Major General Dabney H. Maury in Mobile, for reinforcements, supplies, and naval support. Union forces commenced formal siege operations, and work progressed rapidly. Union gunboats brought Spanish Fort under fire from the water, and by April 4 the Union gunners were firing shells against it at the rate of one every three to four minutes. Believing he could no longer hold the post, Gibson abandoned it on the night of April 8, the same day that Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant proposed surrender terms to General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox. The evacuation of Spanish Fort permitted the concentration of Union forces against the garrison of nearby Fort Blakely, and that position was successfully taken on April 9. Three days later Union forces entered Mobile. Union naval operations had been costly, for Confederate mines had claimed nine Union ships, resulting in the loss of 114 men. Christopher Rein

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See also Amphibious Warfare; Buchanan, Franklin; Farragut, David Glasgow; Fort Morgan, Alabama; Mobile Bay; Mobile Bay, Battle of; Riverine Warfare; Thatcher, Henry Knox; Torpedoes

References Hearn, Chester G. Mobile Bay and the Mobile Campaign: The Last Great Battles of the Civil War. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1993. United States Department of War. War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Ser. I, vol. 49, Parts I and II. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1880–1901.

Mobile Bay Inlet of the Gulf of Mexico along the eastern Gulf Coast of the United States, just west of the Florida Panhandle and Pensacola, Florida. The mouth of Mobile Bay is formed by Dauphin Island (a barrier island) to the west and Fort Morgan Peninsula to the east. At the head of Mobile Bay lies the city of Mobile, on the western shore. In addition to being an inlet of the Gulf of Mexico, Mobile Bay is also an estuary; in the north two rivers empty into it—the Mobile and Tensaw. Other smaller rivers feed into it as well, including the Fowl, Deer, Fish, and Dog rivers. The bay covers an area measuring 413 square miles; it is approximately 31 miles long (north to south) and 24 miles wide (east to west). Mobile Bay is uniformly shallow, with much of it not exceeding 10 to 15 feet in depth. Shipping channels have been dredged over the years, most leading to and from Mobile. Today, the deepest channel is about 75 feet deep, meaning that the largest of ships can safely navigate the bay. At the time of the Civil War, shipping channels would have been far shallower, perhaps reaching a depth of 25 feet. The shallow waters of the bay have frequently created serious problems during the many hurricanes that have ravaged the Alabama coast. Storm surges reaching 15 to 20 feet or more have flattened towns along the bay and have frequently inundated parts of Mobile. Spanish explorers first arrived in Mobile Bay around 1500. In 1516 and 1519, the area was more carefully surveyed, and in 1528 Pánfilo de Narvaez launched an expedition that likely witnessed him crossing the width of Mobile Bay. In 1540 Hernando de Soto more thoroughly explored the region, where he found significant numbers of Muskogean peoples. In the late 1600s and early 1700s, the area around lower Mobile Bay came under French influence. First erecting a fortified port on Dauphin Island, the French then founded Mobile, which served as the first capital of Louisiana, in 1702. Mobile Bay had great strategic significance during the Civil War, as it does now. Not only did it offer direct egress to Mobile, but it also thrust into the Alabama interior like a lance, affording an invading amphibious force easy access to inland

414 |â•‡ Mobile Bay, Battle of

areas of the state. The city of Mobile, located along the Mobile River, was an important metropolitan area at the time of the Civil War. A key port and manufacturing center, Mobile served as a principal center of the lucrative cotton trade; it was also the fourth largest city in the Confederacy. Mobile Bay was the site of two significant Civil War actions. The first occurred on August 5, 1864, when Union rear admiral David G. Farragut fought for control of Mobile Bay. Although it began badly, the Battle of Mobile Bay ultimately ended in a Union victory. Until the end of the conflict, the Union troops controlled access to the bay. The second action occurred during the Union siege of Mobile on March 25–April 12, 1865. The siege ended with Mobile’s surrender on April 12, but the operation cost the Union nine ships and the lives of 114 men. Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr. See also Blockade of the Confederacy; Blockade-Runners; Farragut, David Glasgow; Fort Morgan, Alabama; Gulf of Mexico; Mississippi River; Mississippi Sound; Mobile, Alabama; Mobile, Siege of; Mobile Bay, Battle of; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Hearn, Chester G. Mobile Bay and the Mobile Campaign: The Last Great Battles of the Civil War. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1993. Higginbotham, Jay. Mobile, City by the Bay. Mobile, AL: Azalea City Printer, 1968.

Mobile Bay, Battle of Event Date: August 5, 1864 In the early summer of 1864 planning began for a Union assault on Mobile Bay. Union general in chief Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant and West Gulf Blockading Squadron commander Rear Admiral David G. Farragut had long sought to secure Mobile Bay and Mobile. The city of Mobile was a major industrial center, second only to the Tredegar Works at Richmond in manufacturing heavy guns and rolling heavy iron plate. The Confederate Navy had also established at Selma a cannon foundry capable of producing the heaviest guns. Mobile was also the last deepwater port on the Gulf of Mexico available to the Confederacy, and the city of Mobile itself, only 30 miles from the Gulf, was an important transshipment point for goods brought in by blockade-runners and sent upriver to the interior. Now, with the failure of the Red River Expedition, the opportunity to seize Mobile had arrived. In June 1864 Major General Edward R. S. Canby replaced Major General Nathaniel P. Banks in command of the Military Division of West Mississippi. While en route to his New Orleans headquarters, Canby received a telegram on June 4 from Major General William T. Sherman requesting that he carry out a strong feint or real attack against Mobile. Sherman, then closing on Atlanta, had a sizable numerical advantage over the forces opposing him but wished to make certain that

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the Confederate forces there were not reinforced. Sherman urged Canby to attack from Pascagoula, Mississippi, in conjunction with naval units under Farragut. On June 17 Canby met with Farragut aboard his flagship, the screw sloop Hartford, off Mobile Bay. The two men developed a plan whereby Farragut’s ships would run past the forts guarding the mouth of the bay and destroy the Confederate squadron in the bay itself. After this, a joint army-navy assault would secure forts Morgan and Gaines at the entrance to the bay. Union land forces would then advance on Mobile from Pascagoula, while the navy secured the earthen fortification of Fort Powell at Grant’s Pass in the Mississippi Sound. Canby anticipated no problem in obtaining the 20,000 land troops he thought necessary for the operation. Farragut was, however, awaiting the arrival of ironclads, which he deemed essential to deal with the powerful Confederate ram Tennessee in Mobile Bay. The Confederates anticipated a Union descent on Mobile and had pushed development of their defenses. In March 1864 Confederate brigadier general Richard L. Page, who had been a long-serving U.S. Navy officer before the war and then a commander in the Confederate Navy, assumed command of the outer defenses of Mobile Bay. Page supervised the construction or reinforcement of forts to cover the channel into the bay and the approaches to Mobile itself. Fort Morgan was the principal Confederate position and by far the most powerful of the three forts. A pentagonal-shaped, casemated masonry structure begun in 1818, it was situated at the tip of Mobile Point, a long neck of land that jutted out into the bay and controlled its entrance from the east. The fort mounted 40 guns, including 7 10-inch Columbiads, and another 29 guns were located in exterior batteries. Two other forts were located up the channel. Fort Gaines on the eastern tip of Dauphin Island, to the west of the channel, contained 27 guns, 3 of which were 10-inch Columbiads. In the bay, unfinished Fort Powell at Cedar Point guarded the shallow Grant’s Pass. It mounted only 6 guns, 1 a 10-inch Columbiad. The Confederates also placed obstructions in the form of pilings in the channel between forts Morgan and Gaines and on both sides of Fort Powell. The channel between the pilings and Fort Morgan was further narrowed by 180 torpedoes (submerged mines), rigged to explode when struck by a passing vessel. The torpedoes were in three parallel rows, but most of them had been in the water for some time, and a number were defective. Regardless, the remaining channel for shipping was only about 150–200 yards wide. Confederate rear admiral Franklin Buchanan commanded Confederate naval forces in the bay. When he arrived on station at the end of 1862, the Confederates had seven ironclads under construction or about to be laid down on the Alabama and Tombigbee rivers. Buchanan hoped he might have eight ironclads with which to defend the bay, but by the time of the battle, he had only five on paper: the rams Tennessee II (usually known as the Tennessee), Huntsville, Tuscaloosa, Baltic, and Nashville. Three other rams were still under construction on the Tombigbee River.



However, the Huntsville and Tuscaloosa could make only 2.5 knots, barely enough to steam against the current in the bay, and thus became floating batteries. With insufficient plate available, the Nashville was sacrificed to complete the Tennessee II. The Baltic was too unwieldy. Thus, Buchanan actually had only four warships available: the ram Tennessee and the wooden side-wheeler gunboats Gaines, Morgan, and Selma. The powerful ironclad Tennessee served as Buchanan’s flagship and was by far his most powerful warship. Protected by up to 6 inches of iron on the casemate, it mounted six Brooke rifles: two 7-inch pivot-mounted fore and aft, and four 6.4inch in broadsides. Inadequately powered, it was difficult to maneuver, but its principal defect was its relatively exposed rudder chains that ran in channels in the after deck. The Gaines and Morgan were side-wheelers built in 1862 and armed with five guns each (one 7-inch and one 6-inch rifled gun, two 32-pounder rifles, and one 32-pounder smoothbore). The small Selma mounted three rifled guns (one IX-inch, one 8-inch, and one 6-inch). During several weeks, from late February to mid-March 1864, Farragut had subjected Fort Powell to prolonged bombardments by mortar schooners and other lightdraft vessels brought from the Mississippi River. This was a feint intended to keep the Confederates from sending troops north against General Sherman. Fort Powell replied, but neither side inflicted damage. The exchange helped convince Farragut, however, of the absolute necessity of a combined-arms operation against the forts. Buchanan did not wish to wait until he was attacked. An effort to sortie from the bay and attack the blockading Union warships on the night of May 23, however, was stymied when the Tennessee ran aground. Although the tide refloated the ram, the Union ships were then fully alerted, and Buchanan called off a daylight attack. Again Farragut appealed to Washington for ironclads to counter the Tennessee, and this time the department agreed to send out two single-turreted Canonicusclass monitors: the Manhattan and the Tecumseh. Each mounted two XV-inch Dahlgren guns. The department also detached from Rear Admiral David D. Porter’s Mississippi Squadron the double-turreted river monitors Chickasaw and Winnebago, each with four XI-inch Dahlgrens. The Union plan called for Farragut’s ships to run past the Confederate forts while Union major general Gordon Granger’s IV Corps, sent from New Orleans, went ashore. Once Farragut had neutralized the Confederate squadron, the Union ships and Granger’s men would assault and take the forts. Pending the arrival of the 4 ironclads, Farragut counted 14 warships, all wooden: the big screw sloops USS Brooklyn, Hartford, Richmond, Lackawanna, and Monongahela; the smaller screw sloops Ossippi, Oneida, and Seminole; the screw gunboats Kennebec and Itasca; the side-wheeler gunboats Octorara, Metacomet, and Port Royal; and the ex-ironclad Galena, now an unarmored screw sloop. As the Union preparations went forward off Mobile Bay, some of the heaviest fighting of the war was occurring in the East in Lieutenant General Ulysses S.


Grant’s Overland Campaign against Richmond. These operations soon affected the Mobile Bay operation. On July 1 Canby was ordered to detach as many men as he could spare, preferably the 20,000-man XIX Corps or its equivalent in numbers, and send them east. Complying with this request, Canby informed Farragut that the attack on Mobile had been canceled. Farragut was not pleased with this news, but he was somewhat mollified that Canby expressed the hope that at least part of the operation could be saved. On July 9 the two men again met, and Canby offered to make available perhaps 4,000 men to operate against the Confederate forts. Although clearly insufficient in numbers to take Mobile, this force would enable Farragut to proceed with his own plan to secure Mobile Bay. The revised plan called for some 3,000 Union troops with artillery to come ashore on the Gulf beach about three miles behind Fort Morgan at the same time that the fleet passed into the bay through the main channel. The soldiers would then work their way to within a mile of the fort and entrench. As Farragut’s ships entered the bay, the troops would open up artillery fire against the fort from that direction. A reserve of 1,500 men would remain in Mississippi Sound. After the fleet had entered the bay, part of this force would land on Dauphin Island to attack Fort Gaines in conjunction with Farragut’s ships. On July 12 Farragut issued orders to prepare for battle. Crews removed unnecessary spars and rigging and protected valuable machinery with sandbags and chain. On July 18, however, Canby sent word that there would be a delay in assembling the troops. Farragut replied that time was running out and that the weather would not hold much longer. He was willing to proceed if the army would provide as few as 1,000 men against Fort Gaines. These men could then proceed to Fort Morgan after Gaines had been taken. Farragut was emboldened by the arrival of the Manhattan from Pensacola, along with word that two of the other monitors would also soon be on hand. On July 26 Canby informed Farragut that he had 2,000 men ready to act against Fort Gaines. Another 3,000 would be available as reinforcements following the evacuation of Union garrisons in Texas. Three days later, Canby informed Farragut that although the men from Texas had not yet arrived, he was that day sending 2,400 men to operate against Dauphin Island in cooperation with the navy. General Granger had command. On July 29 Farragut issued General Order No. 11, spelling out the plan. All ships would pass to the east of the easternmost buoy, in the area clear of obstructions. Should a ship be disabled, it was to drop out of the line to westward and make no further attempt to enter the bay until all the remaining ships of the squadron had passed. Once the Union ships were in the bay, the smaller gunboats were to engage the Confederate gunboats to prevent them from escaping up the bay to Mobile. Farragut was concerned about the Confederate torpedoes. Although refugees and deserters had reported that many were water-soaked and probably unreliable,


he had no information on their location or extent. On several occasions Farragut’s flag lieutenant, John C. Watson, conducted night reconnaissance missions, but he was unable to learn anything. On July 31 the Winnebago arrived at the fleet anchorage at Sand Island, with the Chickasaw close behind. Farragut then dispatched the Richmond to Pensacola to hurry along the Tecumseh. The next day, Granger met with Farragut and informed him of his intention to land on the west end of Dauphin Island; his men would then work their way toward Fort Gaines at the other end. The joint assault would occur on August 4. When the Tecumseh arrived, Farragut would have 18 warships, 4 of them monitors. On August 3, as Granger’s transports steamed up Mississippi Sound toward Dauphin Island, Farragut met with his captains aboard the Hartford. He had wanted the flagship to lead the attack, but his captains persuaded him that it would be too exposed. Farragut reluctantly agreed that this honor would go to the Brooklyn, commanded by Captain James Alden Jr. and equipped with four bow chaser guns and a torpedo catcher. It was a decision he would have cause to regret. That same afternoon, Farragut learned that the Tecumseh would apparently not arrive in time. Farragut was determined to proceed with or without the ironclad. “I can lose no more days,” he wrote. Late on the afternoon of August 3, 1,500 of Granger’s men landed unopposed on the west end of Dauphin Island, and the next day skirmishing began ashore. Farragut ordered the Winnebago to drive off Confederate ships landing men and supplies at Fort Gaines. The ironclad moved to about 1,000 yards of the fort and lobbed 24 shots in its direction; Fort Gaines responded with several shots of its own. Neither side suffered any significant damage. Later on August 4 Farragut met with his captains aboard the Hartford for the last time before the attack. His plan called for the monitors Tecumseh, Manhattan, Winnebago, and Chickasaw to be closest to Fort Morgan and mask a second column of ships to their left, consisting of the seven larger wooden ships: the Brooklyn, Hartford, Richmond, Lackawanna, Monongahela, Ossipee, and Oneida. Quantities of heavy chain draped over their unprotected sides served as makeshift armor for the wooden ships. Farragut also employed a tactic similar to the one he had used against Port Hudson by ordering the seven smallest wooden ships—four sidewheeler gunboats, two screw gunboats, and a screw steamer—lashed to the port sides of the larger screw steamers, which would provide them an additional layer of protection. These ships were, in order, the Octorara, Metacomet, Port Royal, Seminole, Kennebec, Itasca, and Galena. Farragut specified an approach en echelon to starboard in order to provide his ships’ bow guns a free field of fire. The squadron would pass as close as possible to Fort Morgan, with their broadsides the ships’ best defense. At the same time, supporting ships would lay down suppressive fire on the forts. Lieutenant Commander E. C. Grafton’s Gulf Flotilla of six gunboats was to shell Fort Morgan from the


Gulf, while Lieutenant Commander J. C. P. De Kraft’s Mississippi Sound Flotilla of five small gunboats would engage Fort Powell. At about 4:30 p.m. the Richmond returned from Pensacola with the Tecumseh, under tow by the side-wheeler Bienville. At dusk the ships that would make the run into the bay steamed beyond the bar and anchored in line abreast on either side of the Brooklyn. At 3:00 a.m. on August 5, 1864, all hands were called to stations. The crews made final preparations and received sandwiches. A proper breakfast would be served after the battle. The ships then formed up in pairs, and at 5:30 a.m. the Hartford hoisted the signal “Get under way.” Soon Farragut’s ships were steaming into the bay. The monitors were assigned key roles: the Tecumseh and Manhattan were to engage CSS Tennessee and prevent it from reaching the wooden warships, while the Winnebago and Chickasaw were to lay down suppressive fire against Fort Morgan. Shortly after 6:00 a.m. the first Union ships crossed the bar. About this time the morning mist cleared, revealing large U.S. flags at every peak, staff, and masthead. Conditions were ideal. A light southwesterly breeze would serve to blow smoke from the Union guns in the direction of the forts, inhibiting the aim of the Confederate gunners. A flood tide also helped compensate for the low steam Farragut had ordered aboard the Union ships. The Confederates, however, had the advantage of being able to rake the Union ships during their approach. About 6:00 a.m., Buchanan in the Tennessee received word that the Union ships had begun crossing the bar, and he ordered his flag captain, Commander James D. Johnston, to get the ironclad under way. Buchanan ordered his four ships to assume a line-ahead formation across the channel adjacent to the torpedo field. The smaller vessels were to the west of the flagship. Buchanan hoped to “cross the T” of the Union line, raking the advancing Union ships with the 16 guns he had available, most of which were long-range rifled pieces. Buchanan also addressed the crew of the Tennessee, exhorting the men to fight hard and in no case to surrender. Meanwhile the Fort Morgan garrison manned the 18 guns there. The Tecumseh led the Union column and was well out in front of the other ships. Commander Tunis A. M. Craven was unfamiliar with the bay and its shoals, but he had aboard pilot John Collins, who knew the waters well. The Tecumseh’s guns were loaded with shell. When they were fired, the guns would be recharged with solid shot to meet the Tennessee. At 6:47 a.m. the Tecumseh opened fire on Fort Morgan. General Page thought the range too great and did not authorize return fire until 7:05 a.m., with the Tecumseh then some 2,000 yards distant and the remainder of the squadron at nearly 3,000 yards. The Brooklyn returned fire, and the engagement became general. Peering through the narrow slits of the Tecumseh’s pilothouse, Captain Craven could see the Tennessee some 600 yards ahead. The Manhattan followed in the Tecumseh’s wake, but the Brooklyn was gaining on the port quarter and now threatened to overtake them and enter the bay first.


Captain Alden in the Brooklyn realized the situation. He could not afford to be in advance of the Chickasaw and Winnebago, which were too far west of Fort Morgan to allow the wooden vessels to pass east of the minefield. The Tennessee lay in wait on the other side of the torpedoes. Buchanan was prepared to ram the first ship to enter the bay and hoped that if he could sink a large Union ship in the narrow channel between Fort Morgan and the torpedo field, this might deny the others access to the bay and force them to retire back into the Gulf. Alden ordered one of the army flagmen brought aboard the squadron to signal the flagship: “The Monitors are right ahead. We cannot go on without passing them. What shall we do?” It was hard to get answers back and forth through the smoke, and Lieutenant John Kinney had to climb some 100 feet above the deck into the Hartford’s crosstrees to see the Brooklyn and send the reply, “Go ahead.” By the time this message reached Alden, the Brooklyn had already overtaken two of the monitors and was abreast of the Manhattan. The sloops Hartford and Richmond were also closing fast. Craven doubted that the Tecumseh could pass to the east of the red marker buoy and change course in time to be able to engage the Tennessee before it could ram the Union wooden ships. The Confederate ironclad, now some 200 yards ahead, had actually moved a bit to the west in order to be in better position for the very maneuver Craven feared. This situation prompted Craven to order the Tecumseh to skirt inside the line of Confederate torpedoes and make directly for the Tennessee to engage it at once. The Tecumseh forged ahead, and there was shortly a terrific roar as the monitor struck and exploded one of the torpedoes. The ship rolled immediately to port, its bow down and stern lifted up, with the propeller turning madly in the air. The Tecumseh sank in less than half a minute. Craven and pilot Collins both left the pilothouse, meeting at the foot of the ladder to the escape hatch on the turret and struggling in water already up to their chests. “After you, pilot,” Craven said. They were the last words Craven was heard to utter, for Collins was the 21st and last man free of the ship. Craven and 92 others perished. Some survivors made it into one of the monitor’s boats that had somehow floated free, while others were picked up by a cutter sent from one of the sloops; 4 men also swam to shore, where they were taken prisoner. Both sides were so stunned by the explosion that fire slackened for a few moments before resuming. Despite the loss of the Tecumseh, Farragut ordered the monitors to proceed with the Brooklyn to take its place in the line. The Hartford was now dangerously close to the Brooklyn, and the Richmond was not far behind the flagship. The Brooklyn in effect blocked the channel. Farragut, who was lashed in the mizzen shrouds of the Hartford to have a vantage point to observe the battle, saw the Union ships behind him slow to a near halt and bunch up. General Page ordered his gun crews to fire as fast as they could at the now-stationary Union ships, and casualties aboard them mounted as the Confederate shells found their mark. Had it


not been for Farragut’s order that his ships run close to the fort and direct a steady fire of grape and shrapnel against it, they would have been even worse off. It now appeared that the Confederates might win the battle. Clearly this was its decisive point, and Farragut knew it. When Alden failed to advance, despite three orders from Farragut to go ahead, the admiral took action himself. He knew that if he could only get a number of his ships into the bay, he could control it. There was a major risk from other Confederate torpedoes, but Farragut chose to take that with his own ship. Getting the attention of pilot Martin Freeman, Farragut asked if there was sufficient depth of water for the Hartford to pass to port of the Brooklyn. Freeman replied in the affirmative, and Farragut said, “I will take the lead.” Freeman then asked about the torpedoes. Farragut briefly hesitated and then told Freeman to pick his way and enter the bay, or blow up. The outcome of the battle now rested in Freeman’s hands. Gaining speed, the Hartford passed to port of the Brooklyn. As the Hartford overtook the leading Union ship, Farragut shouted, “What’s the trouble?” “Torpedoes,” was the reply. “Damn the torpedoes,” Farragut said. He then ordered his ship to get up speed, and finally he called to the captain of the gunboat lashed to the side of the Hartford, “Go ahead, Jouett, full speed!” Farragut’s words passed into history in shortened form as, “Damn the torpedoes; full speed ahead.” Fortunately for Farragut and the men of the Hartford, many of the primer tubes and fuses in the torpedoes were corroded from long immersion in the saltwater. As the Hartford pushed past the Brooklyn and into the minefield, the men below decks could hear primers going off and torpedoes bumping into the hull beneath them, but no others exploded that day. By 7:50 a.m. the Hartford was clear of the minefield and into the bay. Although the Union ships fired into Fort Morgan as they passed it, the fort gave better than it took, and the last ships in the Union line sustained considerable damage. The Oneida was the principal casualty. Its boiler knocked out and rudder cables cut, the ship was dead in the water, but the Galena, lashed to its side, was able to move it to safety. Buchanan, meanwhile, spied Farragut’s pennant on the Hartford and ordered the Tennessee to make for the Union flagship. The Confederate gunboats joined in, raking the Hartford. Buchanan’s effort to ram was unsuccessful. The Tennessee did not have sufficient speed, and the more nimble Hartford easily avoided the Confederate ironclad’s charge. As the Tennessee passed the Union flagship, both ships fired at each other. Buchanan then attempted to engage the following Union sloops. As the Hartford steamed up the channel, the smaller Confederate gunboats maintained position off its starboard bow, firing into it at close range with devastating effect. Soon, however, the Union flagship brought its own guns to bear and drove them off. Farragut then ordered the Metacomet and other smaller ships cut free to attack the Confederate gunboats, which immediately hauled off up the bay.


The Tennessee, meanwhile, passed down the column of Union ships. Its lack of maneuverability precluded efforts to ram, but its guns produced both damage and casualties. Farragut wrote later that the Confederate squadron inflicted more casualties than the guns of Fort Morgan. Meanwhile, acting in accordance with Farragut’s plan, the smaller Union ships concentrated their fire on the Confederate gunboats. The Gaines took several hits below the waterline, and its captain tried to make Fort Morgan. The Gaines reached Mobile Point about 400 yards from Fort Morgan before it sank. The Selma continued to fire into the Hartford until the Metacomet, a Â�double-ended side-wheeler steamer and the fastest of Farragut’s gunboats, attacked and drove it into shallow water above Fort Morgan, where its crew surrendered. When the Selma’s captain, Lieutenant Peter U. Murphy, hauled down its flag, he and six crewmen had been wounded, and two officers and six crewmen were dead. Farragut was not pleased, however, that the relatively undamaged Morgan managed to reach the fort and take refuge under its guns. That night it escaped up the bay to Mobile. The Tennessee, meanwhile, swept on, unable to ram any of the remaining Union ships but firing at them and continuing to inflict damage and casualties. Finally, after exchanging fire with the last pair of Union ships, it turned and gained the protection of Fort Morgan. There, Buchanan contemplated his next move. The remaining Union ships were now all safely into the bay and beyond the range of Fort Morgan’s guns. At about 8:30 a.m. Farragut ordered his ships to anchor four miles up the bay. He intended to carry out a quick damage assessment and allow the men their breakfast. At this time Master’s Mate James T. Seaver, captain of the Union support ship Philippi, decided to bring his little side-wheeler into Mobile Bay, apparently to share in the glory. Earlier denied permission to accompany the battle line, Seaver disobeyed orders on the excuse that his ship would be able to render assistance to any Union vessel that had been disabled. Although Seaver kept to the far side of the channel, about 2,000 yards from Fort Morgan, the Philippi soon grounded, whereupon shells from the fort set it on fire and destroyed it. Its crew abandoned the ship in some haste, leaving behind a dead crewman. The Tennessee remained quiescent for a time, its large propeller turning just enough to keep it stationary in the tide. Inspection revealed some damage, but the ironclad was still battle-worthy. Although many of his officers and men thought they had satisfied honor and done enough, Buchanan was determined to continue the fight. He assumed that Farragut would soon attack. Rather than have this happen and vowing to “have it out,” Buchanan ordered the Tennessee back into the fray against the entire Union squadron at 8:50 a.m. The Confederate artillerymen at Fort Morgan cheered the ram on in what seemed to be virtually a suicide mission. The Tennessee, with only 6 guns, would face 157 Union guns. Buchanan hoped to inflict what damage he could and then return to Fort Morgan and there ground the ironclad as a stationary battery to assist in repelling attacks on the fort. In any case, he did not want to see a repeat of


what had happened to CSS Virginia in the James River, when it had been scuttled without a fight. As the Tennessee headed for the larger Union wooden ships, Union lookouts spotted the movement as soon as it began. At about two miles’ range, the Tennessee fired a bolt at the Union ships, but it did not hit any of them. Captain Percival Drayton assumed that the ram would head for the bar and attempt to attack the squadron’s ships remaining in the Gulf, but Farragut guessed Buchanan’s intent and ordered Drayton to ready the crew and get the ship under way. Farragut had Kinney signal to the iron-prowed Monongahela and the swifter Lackawanna to “run down the ram.” Signals were also run up on the flagship ordering all the ships of the squadron to join the attack. Without delaying to hoist in the anchor chain, Commander James H. Strong ordered the Monongahela to slip its cable and get under way immediately. A few minutes later, Captain John B. Marchand of the Lackawanna also had his ship headed for the ram. Making only six knots, it would take the Tennessee about half an hour to reach the Union ships. Strong and Marchand positioned their own ships so as to be able to ram the Tennessee on opposite sides. Although Buchanan tried to evade them, both Union warships smashed into the Confederate ironclad at high speed, the Monongahela first and the Lackawanna about five minutes later. They did not slow the Confederate ironclad. In the exchange of fire, the Union shot bounced harmlessly off the ram’s sloping sides, and both Union ships were damaged and sustained casualties. The Tennessee, meanwhile, continued on course, its target the flagship Hartford, some 1,500 yards ahead, with Farragut again in the ship’s rigging, observing events. The Manhattan took up position between the Hartford and the Tennessee, but the monitor’s slow speed prevented it from being able to ram its adversary. It managed to get off only two shots, neither of which inflicted damage. Leaving the monitor astern, the Tennessee closed to within 1,000 yards of its intended target. Accepting the inevitable, Farragut ordered the Hartford ahead full steam. At 9:35 a.m. the two ships struck glancing blows, each scraping the other on its port side. The Hartford let loose a broadside at only 8 feet, but the shot barely dented the ram’s armor. The Confederate ship had only two guns in broadside; one misfired, but the other fired a shell that exploded in the Hartford’s berth deck, killing five crewmen and wounding eight others. By now the entire Union flotilla surrounded the Confederate flagship, which was still giving more than it was taking. The collision with the Hartford pushed the Tennessee’s bow away from its prey, and Commander Johnston decided to circle to build up speed for another ramming attempt. The double-turreted Chickasaw followed the Tennessee, pounding away at its stern gun-port shutter until the end of the battle. At 9:45 a.m. the Manhattan joined in and at last inflicted serious damage. A shot from one of the Manhattan’s XV-inch Dahlgrens ripped through the Tennessee’s side, tearing away some five inches of iron and more than two feet of solid wood backing it. This was the sole Union shot during the battle to penetrate.


Meanwhile the Chickasaw’s XI-inch Dahlgrens pounded the stern of the Confederate ironclad, cutting its poorly protected tiller chains. This forced the Tennessee’s crew to employ tiller tackle, but then the tiller arm was shot away, rendering steering all but impossible. The Tennessee’s smokestack was also knocked down, and other Union shot jammed the after–gun port shutter. The Hartford had now carried out a turn and made for the Confederate ram. This, however, put the Union flagship on a collision course with the Lackawanna, which had also circled in hopes of making another ramming attempt. Neither ship was able to change course before they collided. The Lackawanna struck the Hartford’s port quarter, cracking open the latter’s hull. Fortunately for Farragut, the hole was above the waterline, and the flagship was able to continue the fight. Aboard the Tennessee, meanwhile, two crewmen were killed, and Buchanan was wounded. The ram was virtually dead in the water, its ammunition nearly gone, and gun-port shutters on its bow and stern and one of the shutters on the portside were jammed shut. Given these conditions, Buchanan, who had been taken below to the cockpit, authorized Johnston to surrender. Johnston ordered the ship’s engines stopped and a white handkerchief run up in place of the Confederate battle flag. Meanwhile, Commander William E. LeRoy’s Ossipee was bearing down on the Tennessee with the intent to ram. LeRoy saw the white flag and ordered engines reversed, but he was unable to avoid striking the ram a hard, glancing blow. LeRoy then identified himself to Johnston, who was standing on the ram’s shield. At 10:00 a.m. a boat from the Ossipee came alongside, and its party accepted the Tennessee’s surrender, carrying Buchanan’s sword back to Farragut as the Union admiral had demanded. Lasting three hours, the sea portion of the Battle of Mobile Bay was over. Farragut later described it as “the most desperate battle I ever fought.” The Battle of Mobile Bay was an important Union victory. It had considerable impact on future naval tactics, and it halted traffic in and out of Mobile Bay, virtually ending Gulf Coast blockade-running. It also provided an important psychological boost to President Abraham Lincoln’s autumn 1864 reelection campaign. Following the surrender of the Tennessee, Farragut turned his attention to the forts. One of the monitors took up position to the rear of Fort Powell, and that night the Confederates evacuated and blew up that position. This left only forts Gaines and Morgan. Cut off from assistance, their defeat was inevitable. Gaines surrendered on August 8. An old friend of General Page, Farragut sent him a message under flag of truce demanding the unconditional surrender of Fort Morgan in order to avoid unnecessary loss of life. Disappointed, even shocked, that Farragut’s vessels had been able to get past the fort and into the bay, and angered by the surrender of the other two forts without his permission, Page replied, “I am prepared to sacrifice life, and will only surrender when I have no means of defense.” It took two weeks of bombardment to bring that about. The Tennessee, recommissioned as a U.S. Navy ship of the same name on August 19, participated in the bombardment. Finally, on August 23, Page requested terms.


The capture of Mobile Bay cost Farragut more casualties than his operations against New Orleans, Port Hudson, and Vicksburg combined: 145 killed and 170 wounded. The Confederates lost 12 killed and 20 wounded, along with the crews of the Tennessee and Selma captured. Farragut’s reward came on December 22 when Congress created the rank of vice admiral, which Lincoln immediately conferred on him. Farragut left operations against Mobile itself to the army, which did not mount an effort against the city until March 1865. On March 12 the small Union tug Althea, a coaler and supply ship, struck a torpedo and went down with two men killed and several injured. It was the first of seven Union ships lost to torpedoes in operations against Mobile in a five-week span, including the river monitor Osage, sunk on March 29. General Canby assembled some 45,000 men, with Rear Admiral Henry K. Thatcher having charge of the naval effort. Army-navy cooperation was again excellent. The main land attack moved up the coast, while a simultaneous diversionary effort proceeded by water to a point on the opposite side of the bay to prevent Confederate reinforcements from reaching the city. The navy provided transport for the troops and carried out resupply. Beginning on March 21, Union gunboats supported a landing at Donnelly’s Mills on the Fish River in Alabama. Thatcher provided six tinclads, all the lightdraft vessels available. With gunboats bombarding Mobile’s forts from the water, the land forces worked their way to the main Confederate position at Spanish Fort. A steady Union bombardment forced the Confederates to evacuate that post on April 8. Batteries Tracy and Huger, up the Blakely River from Spanish Fort, fell three days later. On April 12 Major General Dabney H. Maury’s 9,200 Confederate defenders abandoned their defenses, and Mobile surrendered. Spencer C. Tucker See also Alden, James, Jr.; Amphibious Warfare; Baltic, CSS; Blockade of the Confederacy; Blockade-Runners; Brooklyn, USS; Buchanan, Franklin; Craven, Tunis Augustus Macdonough; Drayton, Percival; Farragut, David Glasgow; Floating Battery; Flotilla; Fort Morgan, Alabama; Galena, USS; Gulf of Mexico; Hartford, USS; Ironclads, Confederate; Ironclads, Union; Johnston, James D.; Lincoln, Abraham; Mississippi River; Mississippi Sound; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Mobile, Alabama; Mobile, Siege of; Mobile Bay; Mortar Boats; Nashville, CSS, Ironclad; Page, Richard Lucian; Porter, David Dixon; Port Hudson, Louisiana, Action at; Richmond, USS; Riverine Warfare; Selma Naval Gun Foundry; Shelby Iron Company; Tecumseh, USS; Tennessee, CSS; Thatcher, Henry Knox; Tinclads; Tredegar Iron Works; Virginia, CSS; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Duffy, James P. Lincoln’s Admiral: The Civil War Campaigns of David Farragut. New York: Wiley, 1997. Friend, Jack. West Wind, Flood Tide: The Battle of Mobile Bay. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2004. Hearn, Chester G. Mobile Bay and the Mobile Campaign: The Last Great Battles of the Civil War. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1993.

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Scharf, J. Thomas. History of the Confederate States Navy from Its Organization to the Surrender of Its Last Vessel. 1887; reprint, New York: Random House, 1996. Symonds, Craig. Confederate Admiral: The Life and Wars of Franklin Buchanan. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1999. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue and Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 21. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1906. Waugh, John C. Last Stand at Mobile. Abilene, TX: McWhiney Foundation Press, 2001.

Monitor, USS Revolutionary U.S. Navy ironclad. With the Confederates at work converting the U.S. Navy steam frigate Merrimack into the ironclad Virginia, the U.S. Navy Department called for the construction of its own ironclads. One of three experimental ironclads, the Monitor was designed by naval architect John Ericsson. With a low freeboard and revolving turret, it was by far the most controversial of the three ships, and securing approval from the Ironclad Board for its construction was not easy. The Navy Department accepted the design only because of the perceived threat from the Virginia and because Ericsson promised to complete the work quickly. The contract was most unusual and reflected doubts about the ship’s viability. Ericsson and his partners had to assume all the risk. If the ship failed in any way— with the navy to determine what constituted failure—then all sums advanced for the construction were to be refunded to the government. The contract, signed on October 4, 1861, required the ship to be completed in only 100 days, by January 12, 1862. Although this overly ambitious timetable was not met, the ship was completed in near record speed. It was laid down in Brooklyn, New York, on October 25, 1861, and was ready for its trials on February 19, 1862; it was commissioned six days later. The Monitor revolutionized naval warfare. Made entirely of iron, it incorporated such innovations as forced draft ventilation. Of only 987 tons displacement, the ship was 179 feet long by 41 feet, 6 inches, in beam and had a draft of only 10 feet, 6 inches. Its two engines delivered 320 horsepower to a single-screw propeller. Design speed was 9 knots, although actual speed was slightly less. The Monitor in effect had two hulls: an upper or armored raft supported by a lower iron hull. The raft portion had 2 inches of iron on the deck and 4.5 inches on the sides. To shield the hull, the armor extended 3 feet, 6 inches, below the waterline. The Monitor’s most visible part was its 120-ton, 9-foot-tall spindle-mounted turret amidships. The turret had two side-by-side gun ports and mounted a pair of XI-inch Dahlgren smoothbores. The rotating turret enabled the ship’s gun ports to

428 |â•‡ Monitor, USS

The USS Monitor (foreground) was a revolutionary ironclad warship designed by John Ericsson. This shallow-draft warship with low freeboard and without superstructure or rigging featured numerous innovations, including a rotating turret. The ship was the first in a long line of monitor-type U.S. warships. (Naval History and Heritage Command)

be protected from enemy fire while the guns were being reloaded. The turret and a small pilothouse (the command center of the ship), located forward and extending only 3 feet, 10 inches, above the deck, were both heavily protected. The turret had eight layers and the pilothouse nine of 1-inch iron plating. The turret had an interior diameter of less than 20 feet and was quite cramped with the guns and their crews. Most of the ship’s machinery was below the waterline. The turret provided protection for the gun crews and could fire on an opponent with the ship in almost any position, but the heavy weight of early turrets prevented them from being located high in a ship; for that reason Ericsson designed the Monitor with very low freeboard. With only 18 inches of freeboard, and the turret as its principal visible part, the Monitor came to be called “a hat on the water” or “cheesebox on a raft.” The ship had no sails. Ericsson simply ignored the part of the contract that called for the Monitor to have a sail rig. Lieutenant John L. Worden of New York took command of the new warship. His crew numbered just 10 officers and 48 seamen. All were volunteers, the navy being reluctant to assign anyone to such an untried vessel. Following its fitting out at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the Monitor underwent a shakedown cruise in New York Harbor. On March 4 the Navy Department ordered the Monitor to Hampton Roads in the hopes that it might steam up the Elizabeth River and there engage and destroy the Virginia before it sortied, but a major storm delayed departure. Not until March 6 did Worden believe it safe to depart.

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On the trip south, the Monitor nearly foundered in rough weather, the result of workers both mistakenly inserting oakum as a gasket for the turret and failing to obey Ericsson’s instructions to plug the hawser pipe through which the anchor chain passed. The storm dislodged some of the oakum, eventually creating a long circumferential opening through which the sea poured. The pumps were quite unable to keep up with the influx of water, and the ship was soon in danger of foundering. At the same time, water entering through the observation slits in the pilothouse forward and air intake vents on the deck stretched the belts on the blower fans, which then stopped, in turn halting the engines. Carbon dioxide began to spread through the ship. The Monitor was towed to calmer water, and its crew was able to repair the blower belts and clear out the carbon dioxide before restarting the boilers and engines, and slowly voiding the remaining water. The Monitor finally arrived in Hampton Roads on the evening of March 8, and the next morning it engaged the Virginia in battle. Their inconclusive 3.5-hour battle was a draw. The Virginia did sustain damage, however, while the Monitor was virtually unscathed. Worden, blinded by a shell exploding at the pilothouse, was the only serious Union casualty. Tactically, the engagement was a Northern victory, for in merely surviving the Monitor assured the safety of the Union transports and supply ships, and hence the continuation of the Peninsula Campaign and the Union blockade. The battle signaled a new era in naval warfare and gave rise to “Monitor Mania” in the North; of 84 ironclads of all types laid down by the North, 64 were of the monitor, or turreted, type. Unfortunately, this enthusiasm for monitors inhibited the construction of seagoing ironclads. Until the 1880s the U.S. Navy had no true seagoing ironclad vessels that could fight similar ships. After participation in the First Battle of Drewry’s Bluff, the Monitor underwent a refit. Then ordered to Charleston, it was off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, headed south and under tow by the side-wheeler Rhode Island, when a violent storm broke out on the afternoon of December 31, 1862. For three hours the crew struggled to save the ship, but the pumps were insufficient for the rush of water produced by 30-foot waves, and the Monitor sank. Launches from the Rhode Island brought off most of the crew, but 14 sailors were lost, including several who refused to leave the turret. Lying upside down, the wreck was first located in 1973 and is now a protected National Historic Site. Parts of the ship, including its revolutionary turret, propeller, and guns, have been recovered and are being restored at the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Virginia. Spencer C. Tucker See also Brooklyn Navy Yard; Drewry’s Bluff, First Battle of; Ericsson, John; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Ironclad Board, U.S. Navy; Ironclads, Confederate; Ironclads, Union; Monitor Mania; Norfolk Navy Yard; Virginia, CSS; Worden, John Lorimer

430 |â•‡ Monitor Mania

References De Kay, James Tertius. Monitor. New York: Walker, 1997. Mindell, David A. War, Technology, and Experience aboard the USS Monitor. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Monitor Mania Term that describes the enthusiasm for the construction of ironclad warships that swept the Union after the clash between USS Monitor and CSS Virginia at the Battle of Hampton Roads, Virginia, on March 9, 1862. This first battle between ironclads ended in a tactical victory for the Union. When the four-hour battle was over, the Monitor remained in control of Hampton Roads, although the Virginia controlled the approach to the James River, which offered direct access to the Confederate capital of Richmond. Northerners, worried about the Virginia’s earlier victories, were both relieved and excited about the success of the smaller Monitor and its engineering technology. Enthusiasts subsequently lobbied for the construction of a large ironclad fleet to replace the navy’s wooden ships. Among the loudest, and most effective, voices for this position was Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gustavus V. Fox, who had witnessed the Hampton Roads battle. During the entirety of the war, the U.S. Navy continued to build armored warships. In all, the Union constructed some 60 ironclad vessels of varying size and design. The most extreme example of the fixation on monitors was the Casco-class light-draft monitor program debacle late in the war. These ships were to operate on shallow rivers, but design changes resulted in only 3 inches of freeboard without the turret and stores, and their decks had to be raised 22 inches. Of 56 seagoing and coastal ironclads laid down by the North during the war, 52 of these were of the monitor, or turreted, type. Donna Smith See also Ericsson, John; Fox, Gustavus Vasa; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Hampton Roads, Virginia; Ironclads, Union; Monitor, USS; Richmond, Virginia; Strategy, Union Naval; Virginia, CSS; Welles, Gideon

References Greene, Jack, and Allessandro Massignani. Ironclads at War: The Origin and Development of the Armored Warship, 1854–1891. Conshohocken, PA: Combined Publishing, 1998. Roberts, William H. Civil War Ironclads: The U.S. Navy and Industrial Mobilization. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.

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Montauk, USS One of the highly successful 10-ship Passaic-class improved monitor-type ironclads designed by John Ericsson. Laid down at Greenpoint, New York, by the firm of Continental in 1862, the Montauk was launched on October 9, 1862, and commissioned two months later, on December 17. With a displacement of 1,335 tons (844 tons burden), the Montauk was 200 feet in length between perpendiculars, 46 feet in beam, and 11 feet, 6 inches, in draft. The ship was protected by 11 inches of armor on the turret, 8 inches on the pilothouse, 5 inches on the sides of the ship, and 1 inch on the deck. Propelled by a single screw, the Montauk was capable of 7 knots. Crew complement for this class of ironclads varied between 67 and 88 men. The Montauk was armed with two paired XI-inch and XV-inch Dahlgren smoothbore guns and two 3.4-inch (12-pounder) rifled Dahlgren boat howitzers. Commander John L. Worden assumed command. In January 1863 the Montauk was assigned to the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, commanded by Rear Admiral Samuel F. Du Pont, for the assault upon Charleston. It was subsequently joined there by the other Passaic-class ships USS Catskill, Nahant, Nantucket, Passaic, Patapsco, and Weehawken. Uncertain of the capabilities and performance of the new ships and the ability of their new, heavier XV-inch Dahlgren guns to destroy shore fortifications, Du Pont sent the Montauk, mounting eight or nine guns, on January 27 in a trial against earthen Fort McAllister on the Ogeechee River in Georgia. The Montauk was accompanied by the gunboats Seneca, Wissahickon, and Dawn, and the mortar schooner C. P. Williams. The Montauk was unable to close with the fort because of sunken obstacles that appeared to be protected by torpedoes. It nonetheless fired 52 shells and shot with its XI- and XV-inch guns over a period of 4.5 hours but without noticeable effect. Worden reported that Confederate return fire was very accurate. His own ship was struck 14 times, but suffered no damage other than the loss of its cutter. On January 28 a runaway slave provided information on the location of the torpedoes that had blocked the Montauk’s approach the day before, and after taking on a fresh supply of ammunition, Worden returned on February 1 with the Montauk and its same consorts. This time the monitor closed to only 600 yards before opening fire. Return fire was again accurate, with the monitor taking 48 hits in the course of a four-hour slug fest. While the Union vessel was not seriously damaged, the Confederate fort was also unbowed. On February 18 Du Pont sent the Montauk back to McAllister for a third time, this time to destroy the former Confederate cruiser/now blockade-runner Nashville, which had run aground in the Ogeechee near Fort McAllister. Taking up position about 1,200 yards from the Nashville, the Montauk shelled the Confederate ship, setting it on fire and destroying it. Fort McAllister in turn fired on the Montauk, hitting it five times but without material result. In departing the area, however, the

432 |â•‡ Montgomery, John Berrien

Montauk suffered damage from the explosion of a torpedo under its hull, which took several weeks to repair. The Montauk participated in Du Pont’s bombardment of the Charleston forts on April 7, 1863, and in Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren’s July 10 bombardment of Fort Wagner, which continued until August 4. The Montauk participated in the expedition up the Stono River on July 5, 1864, and the bombardment of Fort Anderson in the Cape Fear River on February 11–21, 1865. Decommissioned in 1865, the Montauk was sold for scrap in April 16, 1904. Spencer C. Tucker See also Blockade-Runners; Charleston, South Carolina, Du Pont’s Attack on; Dahlgren, John Adolph Bernard; Du Pont, Samuel Francis; Ericsson, John; Fort McAllister, Georgia, Union Attacks on; Ironclads, Union; Monitor, USS; Nashville, CSS, Ironclad; PassaicClass Monitors; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Stono River Expedition; Worden, John Lorimer


Montgomery, John Berrien Birth Date: November 17, 1794 Death Date: March 25, 1873 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Allentown, New Jersey, on November 17, 1794, John Berrien Montgomery was awarded a midshipman’s warrant on June 4, 1812. Following service in the War of 1812, he was promoted to lieutenant on April 1, 1818, and to commander on December 9, 1839. At the beginning of the Mexican-American War (1846–1848), Montgomery commanded the sloop of war Portsmouth in the Pacific Squadron under Commodore John D. Sloat. Detachments of men from his ship took part in the fighting ashore, and he himself took the surrender of San Francisco in July 1846. He then took up the blockade of Mazatlán on the western coast of Mexico. Moving to Baja California, he then secured the surrender of San José del Cabo on March 30, 1847; San Lucas on April 2; and La Paz on April 13. The Portsmouth then joined the frigate Congress under Captain Elie Lavallette in the bombardment of Guyamas on October 20, resulting in the surrender of that Mexican port the same day. Montgomery was promoted to captain on January 6, 1853. From 1859 to January 1862 he commanded the Pacific Squadron as flag officer. At the beginning of

Morris, Henry W.â•‡ | 433

1861, Montgomery had been in the navy for 48 years: 20 years of sea service, 10 years of service ashore, and 17 years awaiting orders in a navy with too many officers for available assignments. Although transferred to the retired list on December 21, 1861, for reasons of age, Montgomery nonetheless remained on active duty for the next 7 years, first as commandant of the Boston Navy Yard until December 1863. Montgomery was promoted to commodore on the retired list effective July 16, 1862. From December 1863 until the end of 1865, Montgomery commanded the Washington Navy Yard. Beginning in July 1866, Montgomery served for 3 years as commanding officer of the Sackets Harbor Naval Station in New York State. He was advanced to rear admiral on the retired list effective July 25, 1866. Final naval retirement occurred in 1869, after 57 years of service. Montgomery died in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, on March 25, 1873. Spencer C. Tucker See also Boston Navy Yard; Lavallette, Elie Augustus Frederick; Sackets Harbor Naval Station; Washington Navy Yard


Morris, Henry W. Birth Date: 1806 Death Date: August 14, 1863 U.S. Navy officer. Born in New York City in 1806, Henry W. Morris was a grandson of Robert Morris, who signed the Declaration of Independence. Awarded a midshipman’s warrant on August 21, 1819, Morris was promoted to lieutenant on May 17, 1828. Following various assignments afloat he was assigned to special duty in New York City during 1839–1845. He then commanded the storeship Southampton in the Africa Squadron. In 1846 he was ordered to the New York (Brooklyn) Navy Yard, where he spent the next five years awaiting orders. Promoted to commander on October 12, 1849, he had charge of recruiting at New York during 1851–1853, then commanded the sloop Germantown in the Brazil Squadron, before serving in the Mediterranean Squadron. He was promoted to captain on December 27, 1856. At the beginning of 1861, Morris had been in the navy for 41 years: 17 years in sea service, 11 years in assignments ashore, and 12 years awaiting orders in a navy with too many officers for available billets.

434 |â•‡ Morris Island, South Carolina, Union Operations against

After the start of the Civil War, Morris was assigned to superintend the installations of engines and the completion of the screw sloop Pensacola at the Washington Navy Yard; he then took command of that ship, which was commissioned in September 1861. In January 1862 Morris sailed the Pensacola down the Potomac River to Hampton Roads, receiving fire from Confederate shore batteries en route. On January 19 Morris was ordered to join the West Gulf Blockading Squadron for the attempt to force the Mississippi River and capture New Orleans. During the passage upriver past Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip on April 24, 1862, Morris apparently misinterpreted Flag Officer David G. Farragut’s orders to mean that he was to engage the forts. Halting the Pensacola in the middle of the Confederate river obstructions, he let loose a broadside against Fort St. Philip, driving the gun crews on shore to safety. On clearing the obstructions, he ordered a second broadside against the fort. Stopping dead in the water, he made the Pensacola an ideal target. The sloop took nine shots in its hull, and its rigging and masts were also much cut up. The Pensacola suffered 4 killed and 33 wounded, more than on any other ship in the Union squadron that day. Morris was promoted to commodore, effective July 16, 1862. He remained in command of the Pensacola until deteriorating health forced him to relinquish his command in 1863. He returned north and died in New York City on August 14, 1863. Spencer C. Tucker See also Brooklyn Navy Yard; Farragut, David Glasgow; Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s Run Past; Washington Navy Yard; West Gulf Blockading Squadron


Morris Island, South Carolina, Union Operations against Start Date: July 10, 1863 End Date: September 7, 1863 Morris Island was one of the keys to the defense of Charleston, South Carolina, protecting it from an attack by sea during the Civil War. Facing Charleston from the Atlantic Ocean, Morris Island lay to the left (south) of the harbor entrance. It boasted two key positions in Fort (Battery) Wagner and Battery Gregg. Rounding

Morris Island, South Carolina, Union Operations againstâ•‡ | 435

out the Confederate defenses, Fort Sumter lay immediately ahead and just inside the harbor entrance, and to the right of the main entrance was Sullivan’s Island, with its principal works of Fort Moultrie and batteries Bee and Beauregard. Any attacking naval force reaching the harbor mouth would thus be subjected to fire from three sides: Battery Gregg, Fort Sumter, and Fort Moultrie. Confederate gunners on Morris Island took part in the action during Rear Admiral Samuel F. Du Pont’s failed assault on Fort Sumter on April 7, 1863. When Major General Quincy A. Gillmore took command of Union troops against Charleston in June, he developed a plan to assault the city from the southeast with the capture of Morris Island. On July 10 the ships of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, now commanded by Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren, supported the landing of nearly 3,000 of Gillmore’s men on the island’s south end. The Union ships then assisted their advance northward to within a half mile of Fort Wagner, which extended across the narrow northern part of the island and prevented access to Battery Gregg at the tip of the island. During this operation the monitors Catskill, Nahant, Montauk, and Weehawken dueled with Wagner for nearly 12 hours, allowing the Union troops to advance their trenches forward and position Parrott guns within range of the Confederate positions. During the course of two months, Dahlgren’s ships supported the Union troops on Morris Island, mounting no fewer than 25 separate attacks to assist the troops in taking the remainder of the island. On July 18, 11 of Dahlgren’s ships, including 6 ironclads, and Gillmore’s gunners subjected Fort Wagner to one of the most intense bombardments of the entire war, firing some 9,000 projectiles during a span of a dozen hours. Six thousand Union troops, spearheaded by the 54th Massachusetts, a regiment of African American troops commanded by Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, then charged the Confederate positions. Despite the furious Union bombardment, the Confederate defenders sustained only 8 men dead and 20 wounded, and they now came out of their bombproofs and repulsed the Union land assault in desperate fighting. In the subsequent battle that day, Gillmore’s men suffered 1,515 casualties, the defenders but 174. The 54th alone lost 272 men killed, wounded, or missing (Shaw was among the dead), but its heroism under fire vindicated the Union army’s decision to field African American combat units. On August 17, finally able to position a number of heavy guns to shell Fort Sumter, Gillmore began a weeklong bombardment of that fort, again supported by the ironclads. On August 21 Dahlgren attempted a night attack on Fort Sumter, which failed when the Passaic grounded about a half mile from the fort. Although the ironclad was gotten off, this delay caused cancellation of the attack. Dahlgren hesitated between a daylight assault or another night attempt, but on August 23 he mounted another night attack against Sumter. He repeated this at close range on September 1, the monitors suffering but little in the exchange.

436 |â•‡ Morris Island, South Carolina, Union Operations against

Early on August 22, following Confederate commander in Charleston General Pierre G. T. Beauregard’s rejection of a demand for the surrender of Fort Sumter and the rest of Morris Island, Gillmore opened a bombardment of the city of Charleston itself. With its war industries and blockade-runners, the city was a legitimate target under the existing rules of warfare. The chief weapon employed was the “Swamp Angel,” an 8-inch (200-pounder) Parrott rifled gun erected on James Island that, before it burst, sent three dozen shells five miles distant into the waterfront district, setting fires and causing much panic. Gillmore claimed that the purpose of the shelling was to drive Confederate shipping from the city’s wharfs, but the effort seems to have been largely an artillery exercise, and it only hardened Southern determination. Meanwhile, the Union troops on Morris Island continued to advance their lines in zigzag fashion closer to Fort Wagner. The Confederates repulsed several attacks with heavy Union losses. Finally the Union lines, having reached the edge of the redoubt, were close enough for a successful assault. Gillmore and Dahlgren planned a joint army-navy assault for 9:00 a.m. on September 7. In addition to preassault shelling, the monitors Montauk, Passaic, and Weehawken were to engage Battery Gregg at the north end of Morris Island once the assault was under way, in order to keep its guns from interfering with the assault on Wagner. Well aware of their now untenable position, the Confederates decided to abandon Wagner just in time. On the night of September 6, the defenders departed Morris Island, ferried by boat across the harbor. Confederate deserters betrayed the plan to the Union side, but their stories were not believed, and the defenders all escaped. The capture of Morris Island came at considerable cost, but the navy played a key role by providing gunfire support to reduce the defenses and prevent Confederate counterattacks. Although the purpose of the Morris Island operation was to allow Dahlgren to mount a successful assault on Fort Sumter, he was wary of the prospects and delayed any such attempt. With the Confederate departure from Morris Island, however, Charleston became far more difficult for the blockade-runners to use. Union warships could now watch the narrow harbor entrance from inside the bar. In May 2008 the Trust for Public Land succeeded in raising sufficient public and private funds to purchase Morris Island and protect it as a public space for future generations. Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Blockade of the Confederacy; Blockade-Runners; Charleston, South Carolina; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Dahlgren, John Adolph Bernard; Du Pont, Samuel Francis; Fort Sumter, Union Attacks on; Ironclads, Union; Marine Corps, CSA; Marine Corps, U.S.; Montauk, USS; Passaic-Class Monitors; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron

References Browning, Robert M., Jr. Success Is All That Was Expected: The South Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War. Dulles, VA: Brassey’s, 2002.

Mortar Boatsâ•‡ | 437

U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 14. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1902. Wise, Stephen R. Gate of Hell: Campaign for Charleston Harbor, 1863. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1994.

Mortar Boats The first U.S. Navy mortar boats of the Civil War were 38 ordered by Major General John C. Frémont, commander of the Western Department, which joined Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote’s squadron on the upper Mississippi River in March 1862. They first saw action in the Battle of Island Number 10. A mortar-boat flotilla under the command of Captain David D. Porter also took part in Flag Officer David G. Farragut’s campaign to capture New Orleans, initiating that effort with a prolonged shelling of Confederate forts Jackson and St. Philip. Mortar Boat No. 16 also participated in the Battle of Plum Point Bend on May 10, 1862. The mortar boats were designed specifically to engage the Confederate river batteries. The 60- by 25-foot boats, designated by numbers rather than names, were in fact little more than rafts. They were of such low freeboard that the first 2 feet of their 6-foot sloping sides were caulked to keep out water when the mortars were fired. The sides of the craft were slanted inward at the top and plated with half-inch

Lithograph published by Currier & Ives, New York, in 1862 depicting the Union bombardment of Confederate fortifications on Island Number Ten. Union gunboats include (left to right): the Mound City, Louisville, Pittsburg, Carondelet, Benton (flagship), Cincinnati, Saint Louis and the Conestoga. The mortar boats are firing from along the river bank. (Naval History and Heritage Command)

438 |â•‡ Mortars

iron to protect against small-arms fire. The mortar boats had no motive power; tugs moved them about. The mortar boats leaked badly and proved so unwieldy that false bows and sterns were soon added to make them more maneuverable. Each mounted one 17,500-pound, 13-inch mortar. The mortar was trained and fired by a crew of 11 men under a first and second captain. Because of the intense reverberations and noise inside the craft when the mortar was fired, there were iron hatches through which the crew would retire after charging the mortar. They would then fire the mortar by pulling on a long lanyard while they stood at the stern on the deck outside. Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Artillery Projectiles, Naval; Farragut, David Glasgow; Foote, Andrew Hull; Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s Run Past; Fort Pillow, Tennessee; Island Number 10, Battle of; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Naval Ordnance; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; Plum Point Bend, Battle of; Porter, David Dixon; Riverine Warfare

References Tucker, Spencer C. Andrew Foote: Civil War Admiral on Western Waters. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000. Tucker, Spencer C. Arming the Fleet: U.S. Navy Ordnance in the Muzzle-Loading Era. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989.

Mortars Mortars are high-trajectory fire weapons utilized to fire over obstacles. Known as bombs or bomb ketches, they had been employed at sea on special vessels for purposes of shore bombardment as early as the 17th century. Mortars were short (three to four calibers in length) large-caliber weapons. Sea mortars, even heavier than those used on land, were mounted on strong beds and usually fixed at a 45-degree elevation. Commonly the beds turned on vertical pivots. Some mortars were fixed in place; these were turned by moving the ship, usually by springs attached to anchor cables. Mortars were designed to fire against built-up area targets. Their high-angle fire cleared defensive walls and fortifications to strike the targets behind them. Because most mortars were fixed in elevation, range was adjusted by altering the charge. The 13-inch mortar utilized by the U.S. Navy in the Civil War was a formidable weapon. Weighing 17,250 pounds, it rested in a 4,500-pound bed. With a 20-pound charge of powder and at elevation of 41 degrees, the mortar could hurl a 204-pound shell loaded with 7 pounds of powder 4,200 yards. At this range the shell took 30 seconds in flight. In 1862 the navy employed the mortars against Confederate land forts, such as Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, guarding the approaches to New Orleans on the lower Mississippi River, and against Island Number 10 and Fort

Mosquito Fleetâ•‡ | 439

Pillow in support of joint operations on the upper Mississippi. The mortars proved of little worth in these actions, however. A mortar in Mortar Boat No. 16 also took part in the Battle of Plum Point Bend on May 10, 1862. Its crew employed greatly reduced powder charges and dangerously short fuses to burst shells over the Confederate ships in the river. Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Artillery Projectiles, Naval; Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s Run Past; Fort Pillow, Tennessee; Island Number 10, Battle of; Naval Ordnance; Plum Point Bend, Battle of; Riverine Warfare

References Olmstead, Edwin, Wayne E. Stark, and Spencer C. Tucker. The Big Guns: Civil War Siege, Seacoast, and Naval Cannon. Alexandria Bay, NY: Museum Restoration Service, 1997. Tucker, Spencer C. Arming the Fleet: U.S. Navy Ordnance in the Muzzle-Loading Era. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Mosquito Fleet Name assigned to a group of steamers hastily converted by the Confederacy into gunboats at the outbreak of the Civil War. The mission of the Mosquito Fleet was to protect the maze of rivers, sounds, and inlets of eastern North Carolina. Originally consisting of seven ships, the squadron possessed little firepower and no armored protection. Confederate flag officer William F. Lynch commanded the flotilla during the Union amphibious attack on Roanoke Island (February 7–8, 1862). The Mosquito Fleet, outnumbered and outmatched by the Union naval armada, was forced to withdraw up the Pasquotank River to Elizabeth City, North Carolina. After the capitulation of Roanoke Island, the Union naval squadron under Commander Stephen C. Rowan was charged with destroying Lynch’s fleet. On February 10, 1862, the Union gunboats sailed passed a small battery at Cobb’s Point and attacked. The U.S. Navy side-wheeler fourth-rate combatant Commodore Perry rammed and sank Lynch’s flagship, the Sea Bird. The Fanny and Forrest were destroyed by their own crews, while the Beaufort, Appomattox, and Raleigh escaped upriver. The destruction of the Mosquito Fleet, along with the capture of Roanoke Island, secured Union naval control of coastal North Carolina. William E. Whyte III See also Albemarle Sound; Amphibious Warfare; Blockade of the Confederacy; Flotilla; Lynch, William Francis; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Riverine Warfare; Roanoke Island, North Carolina, Union Capture of; Rowan, Stephen Clegg

440 |â•‡ Mound City, USS

References Browning, Robert M., Jr. From Cape Charles to Cape Fear: The North Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1993. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 6. Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1897.

Mound City, USS One of the seven City-class (Cairo-class) ironclads built by James B. Eads for the U.S. Army. The City-class ships were designed by John Lenthall and modified by Eads and Samuel R. Pook. Laid down at Mound City, Illinois, in 1861 for the U.S. Army and commissioned on January 16, 1862, the Mound City displaced 512 tons. It was 175 feet in length, and had a beam of 51.2 feet and a shallow draft of just 6 feet. Also known as a “Pook Turtle” because of its distinctive armored casemate above deck, the Mound City was disabled in action twice during the Civil War. After a brief engagement at Columbus, Kentucky, on February 23, 1862, the Mound City descended the Mississippi River and participated in the campaign for Island Number 10 (March 2–April 8, 1862), along with the bombardment of Fort Pillow (April 13, 1862). During the Battle of Plum Point Bend (May 10, 1862), the Mound City was rammed by the Confederate river gunboats General Price and General Van Dorn; it was taking on water when its captain, Commander Augustus H. Kilty, ran the ship aground to prevent it from sinking. Returned to service upon repair, the Mound City was again disabled during the White River Expedition on June 17, 1862. It took part in the Yazoo River Expedition (November 21–December 11, 1862); the Greenville, Mississippi, operation (August 16–22, 1862); the Steele’s Bayou Expedition (March 14–26, 1863); and the shelling of Grand Gulf, Mississippi (April 29, 1863), after having run past Vicksburg on April 16. It then participated in the bombardment of that city throughout May and June 1863. It then took part in the Red River Campaign (March 10– May 22, 1864). The Mound City was sold on November 9, 1865, and broken up the next year. The Mound City claimed two prizes during the war: the Confederate steamers Red Rover and Clara Dolsen, taken on April 7 and June 14, 1862, respectively. William E. Whyte III See also Cairo-Class River Ironclads; Cairo Naval Station; Cottonclads; Eads, James Buchanan; Fort Pillow, Tennessee; Ironclads, Union; Island Number 10, Battle of; Kilty, Augustus H.; Lenthall, John; Mississippi River; Mississippi River Defense Fleet; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Mound City Naval Station; Plum Point Bend, Battle of; Red River Campaign; Riverine Warfare; Steele’s Bayou Expedition; Vicksburg, Mississippi, Mississippi Squadron Passage of; Vicksburg Campaign; White River Expedition, U.S. Navy; Yazoo River

Mound City Naval Stationâ•‡ | 441

References Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. Smith, Myron J., Jr. The Timberclads in the Civil War: The Lexington, Conestoga and Tyler on the Western Waters. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008.

Mound City Naval Station Located near Cairo, Illinois, on the Ohio River near the confluence with the Mississippi River, the Mound City Naval Station was specifically built to support U.S. Navy riverine operations on western waters. Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote ordered the 10-acre naval facility established, although its machine shops and carpenter shops remained afloat in steamers. Three of the Cairo- or City-class ironclads were built there: the Cairo, Cincinnati, and Mound City. The river ironclad Eastport, which had been captured from the Confederates, was also completed at Mound City, and the army’s Ram Fleet was for a time based there. Captain Alexander M. Pennock had charge at Mound City throughout the war. Although the land was sometimes under water from spring flooding (the buildings were raised on piles), Mound City grew into a major operation. The yard’s principal function was to repair the warships and transports of what would become the navy’s Mississippi Squadron. A major hospital facility was also established there early in the war but was then moved to Memphis in March 1863. In December 1864 the hospital ship Red Rover arrived. It remained at Mound City for the rest of the war, handling any overflow of patients from Memphis. Late in the war large quantities of cotton captured by the navy in the Red River Expedition were stored at Mound City warehouses. At the end of the war, many of the ships of the Mississippi Squadron were stripped of their armaments and decommissioned at the station. The Mound City Naval Station was closed in 1875. Spencer C. Tucker See also Cairo, USS; Cairo-Class River Ironclads; Cairo Naval Station; Cincinnati, USS; Eastport, USS; Foote, Andrew Hull; Medicine, Naval; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Mound City, USS; Ohio River; Ram Fleet, U.S.; Red River Campaign; Riverine Warfare

References Canney, Donald L. Lincoln’s Navy: The Ships, Men and Organization, 1861–65. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998. Porter, David Dixon. The Naval History of the Civil War. 1886; reprint, New York: Dover, 1998. Tucker, Spencer C. Andrew Foote: Civil War Admiral on Western Waters. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000.


Categorical Index

Individuals Adams, Charles Francis, Sr., 3 Adams, Henry A., 4 Alden, James, Jr., 22 Anderson, Joseph Reid, 29 Armstrong, James, 35 Armstrong, James F., 36 Bache, Alexander Dallas, 43 Bache, George Mifflin, 44 Bailey, Theodorus, 45 Bancroft, George, 49 Barney, Joseph Nicholson, 51 Barron, Samuel, 53 Bell, Charles Heyer, 56 Bell, Henry Haywood, 58 Blake, George Smith, 62 Breese, Samuel Livingston, 76 Bridge, Horatio, 77 Brooke, John Mercer, 78 Brown, Isaac Newton, 83 Buchanan, Franklin, 84 Bulloch, James Dunwody, 87 Butt, Walter Raleigh, 88 Carter, Jonathan H., 97 Carter, Samuel Powhatan, 98 Collins, Napoleon, 120 Colt, Samuel, 122 Cooke, James Wallace, 129 Coxetter, Louis Mitchell, 131 Craven, Thomas Tingey, 132

Craven, Tunis Augustus Macdonough, 134 Cushing, William Barker, 136 Dahlgren, John Adolph Bernard, 139 Davidson, Hunter, 147 Davis, Charles Henry, 148 Davis, Jefferson Finis, 149 Dewey, George, 153 Dornin, Thomas Aloysius, 156 Drayton, Percival, 157 Du Pont, Samuel Francis, 163 Eads, James Buchanan, 169 Eagle, Henry, 171 Ellet, Alfred Washington, 175 Ellet, Charles, Jr., 176 Engle, Frederick, 179 Ericsson, John, 180 Farragut, David Glasgow, 183 Farrand, Ebenezer, 185 Fauntleroy, Charles Magill, 187 Fitch, Le Roy, 189 Foote, Andrew Hull, 195 Forrest, French, 198 Fox, Gustavus Vasa, 245 Glassell, William T., 258 Glendy, William Marshall, 260 Godon, Sylvanus William, 261 Goldsborough, John Rodgers, 262 Goldsborough, Louis Malesherbes, 263

CI-1

CI-2 |â•‡ Categorical Index

Gregory, Francis Hoyt, 268 Gwin, William, 274 Hart, John Elliott, 286 Harwood, Andrew Allen, 288 Hitchcock, Robert Bradley, 295 Hoff, Henry Kuhn, 298 Hoge, Francis Lyell, 299 Hollins, George Nichols, 300 Horwitz, Phineas Jonathan, 302 Hull, Joseph Bartine, 305 Hunt, Timothy Atwater, 306 Ingraham, Duncan Nathaniel, 309 Isherwood, Benjamin Franklin, 323 Johnston, James D., 331 Jones, Catesby ap Roger, 333 Kell, John McIntosh, 336 Kilty, Augustus H., 339 Lanman, Joseph, 342 Lardner, James Lawrence, 343 Lavallette, Elie Augustus Frederick, 344 Lee, Samuel Phillips, 345 Lee, Sidney Smith, 347 Lenthall, John, 348 Lincoln, Abraham, 351 Livingston, John William, 354 Lockwood, Henry Hayes, 355 Loyall, Benjamin Pollard, 358 Lynch, William Francis, 359 Maffitt, John Newland, 363 Mahan, Alfred Thayer, 364 Mallory, Stephen Russell, 366 Marston, John, 374 Mason, James Murray, 376 Maury, Matthew Fontaine, 378 McCauley, Charles Stewart, 380 McKean, William Wister, 381 Mercer, Samuel, 391 Mervine, William, 392 Missroon, John Stoney, 408 Mitchell, John Kirkwood, 409 Montgomery, John Berrien, 432 Morris, Henry W., 433

Nelson, William, 465 Nicholson, William Carmichael, 481 Page, Richard Lucian, 493 Palmer, James Shedden, 494 Parker, Foxhall Alexander, Jr., 496 Parker, William Harwar, 497 Parrott, Robert Parker, 499 Paulding, Hiram, 503 Pearson, George Frederick, 507 Pendergast, Garrett Jesse, 508 Phelps, Seth Ledyard, 512 Poor, Charles Henry, 522 Pope, John, Jr., 523 Porter, David Dixon, 524 Porter, John Luke, 527 Porter, William David, 529 Powell, Levin Minn, 541 Preble, George Henry, 543 Price, Joseph, 545 Purviance, Hugh Young, 550 Radford, William, 557 Read, Charles William, 565 Ringgold, Cadwalader, 591 Rodgers, John, 601 Rowan, Stephen Clegg, 603 Sands, Benjamin Franklin, 611 Schneck, James Findlay, 614 Selfridge, Thomas Oliver, Jr., 619 Semmes, Raphael, 621 Sharp, William, 625 Shirk, James W., 634 Shubrick, William Branford, 635 Simms, Charles Carroll, 638 Slidell, John, 639 Smalls, Robert, 641 Smith, Joseph, 642 Smith, Joseph Bryant, 643 Smith, William, 644 Stembel, Roger Nelson, 658 Stewart, Charles, 660 Stribling, Cornelius Kincheloe, 675 Stringham, Silas Horton, 676 Tattnall, Josiah, 690

Thatcher, Henry Knox, 696 Toucey, Isaac, 704 Tucker, John Randolph, 712 Turner, Thomas, 713 Van Brunt, Gershom Jaques, 719 Waddell, James Iredell, 739 Walke, Henry, 741 Walker, William Sparhawk, 742

Categorical Indexâ•‡ | CI-3

Ward, James Harmon, 743 Webb, William Augustine, 749 Welles, Gideon, 750 Wilkes, Charles, 756 Wilkinson, John, 758 Winslow, John Ancrum, 762 Wood, John Taylor, 763 Worden, John Lorimer, 764

Events Alabama vs. Hatteras, 11 Alabama vs. Kearsarge, 13 Alabama Claims, 10 Albemarle, CSS, Destruction of, 18 Albemarle Sound, Battle of, 21 Arkansas, CSS, Union Attempts to Destroy, 32 Baton Rouge, Battle of, 55 Belmont, Battle of, 59 Blockade of the Confederacy, 66 Charleston, South Carolina, CSA Navy Attack on U.S. Navy Blockaders, 102 Charleston, South Carolina, Du Pont’s Attack on, 103 Chickasaw Bluffs, Battle of, 114 Drewry’s Bluff, First Battle of, 158 Dunn’s Bayou, Engagement at, 162 Dutch Gap, Battle of, 165 Elizabeth City, Battle of, 174 Enchantress Affair, 178 Fort Anderson and Wilmington, North Carolina, Union Operations against, 199 Fort Donelson, Battle of, 202 Fort Fisher Campaign, 205 Fort Harrison and Chaffin’s Bluff, Battle of, 208 Fort Henry, Battle of, 210 Fort Hindman, Battle of, 214 Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s Run Past, 216

Fort McAllister, Georgia, Union Attacks on, 226 Fort Sumter, Union Attacks on, 237 Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, Relief Efforts and Beginning of the Civil War, 239 Galveston, Battle of, 250 Galveston, Texas, Union Capture of, 255 Grand Gulf, Battle of, 265 Grand Gulf, Mississippi, Union Shelling of, 266 Greenville, Mississippi, Union Operations in the Vicinity of, 267 Hampton Roads, Battle of, 277 Hatteras Inlet, Union Assault on, 289 Haynes’ Bluff, Mississippi, Union Demonstration at, 291 Head of Passes, Battle of, 292 Island Number 10, Battle of, 324 Memphis, First Battle of, 388 Mobile, Siege of, 411 Mobile Bay, Battle of, 415 Morris Island, South Carolina, Union Operations against, 434 New Bern, North Carolina, Capture of, 469 New Bern, North Carolina, Confederate Raid on, 471 New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of, 477 Peacemaker, Explosion of, 506 Peterhoff Crisis, 510


Phelps’s Raid, 513 Pittsburg Landing, 517 Plum Point Bend, Battle of, 519 Port Hudson, Louisiana, Action at, 530 Port Hudson, Louisiana, Siege of, 532 Port Royal Sound, Battle of, 534 Prize Cases, 548 Queen of the West, USS, 554 Red River Campaign, 569 Roanoke Island, North Carolina, Union Capture of, 598 Russian Fleet Visits to New York and San Francisco, 605 Sabine Pass, First Battle of, 607 Sabine Pass, Second Battle of, 608 Sewell’s Point, Virginia, U.S. Navy Shelling of, 624 Signal Hill Fire Support Mission, 638

Steele’s Bayou Expedition, 655 Stono River Expedition, 665 Sultana Disaster, 681 Trent Affair, 707 Trent’s Reach, Battle of, 708 Underwriter, USS, Confederate Expedition against, 717 Vicksburg, Mississippi, Mississippi Squadron Passage of, 721 Vicksburg, Mississippi, West Gulf Squadron Passage of, 723 Vicksburg Campaign, 724 Wassaw Sound, Battle of, 746 White River Expedition, U.S. Navy, 754 Wilmington, North Carolina, Engagements at, 760 Yazoo Pass Expedition, 767

Groups and Organizations African American Sailors, 5 Atlantic Blockading Squadron, 40 Blockade Board, 64 Blockade-Runners, 71 Coast Survey, U.S., 119 East Gulf Blockading Squadron, 172 Gulf Blockading Squadron, 270 Ironclad Board, U.S. Navy, 312 James River Squadron, CSA, 330 Marine Corps, CSA, 370 Marine Corps, U.S., 372 Mississippi Marine Brigade, 398 Mississippi River Defense Fleet, 401 Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy, 404 Mosquito Fleet, 439 Naval Brigade, 448 Naval Efficiency Board, 449

Naval Investigating Board, Confederate Congress, 453 Navy, CSA, 457 Navy, U.S., 461 North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, 484 Officers and Seamen in the U.S. and Confederate Navies, 487 Permanent Commission, 510 Potomac Flotilla, 539 Ram Fleet, U.S., 559 Revenue Cutter Service, U.S., 585 Savannah River Squadron, 613 South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, 646 Squadron, 650 Submarine Battery Service, 677 West Gulf Blockading Squadron, 753

Places

Brooklyn Navy Yard, 82 Cairo Naval Station, 95 Charleston, South Carolina, 100 Charlotte Navy Yard, 112

Albemarle Sound, 20 Arkansas River, 34 Boston Navy Yard, 75

City Point, Virginia, 117 Columbus Navy Yard, 124 Cumberland River, 135 Fort Monroe, Virginia, 228 Fort Morgan, Alabama, 229 Fort Pickens, Florida, 231 Fort Pillow, Tennessee, 232 Fort Sumter, South Carolina, 234 Fort Warren, Massachusetts, 244 Galveston, Texas, 253 Gulf of Mexico, 272 Hampton Roads, Virginia, 283 James River, 329 Mare Island Navy Yard, 369 Mississippi River, 400 Mississippi Sound, 403 Missouri River, 407 Mobile, Alabama, 411 Mobile Bay, 413 Mound City Naval Station, 441 Naval Academy, Confederate, 445 Naval Academy, United States, 447


New Orleans, Louisiana, 476 Newport News, Virginia, 480 Norfolk Navy Yard, 481 Ohio River, 490 Pensacola Navy Yard, 509 Philadelphia Naval Asylum, 515 Philadelphia Navy Yard, 516 Portsmouth Navy Yard, 538 Potomac River, 540 Red River, 568 Richmond, Virginia, 589 Sackets Harbor Naval Station, 610 Savannah River, 612 Scofield and Markham Gate City Iron Works, 616 Selma Naval Gun Foundry, 620 Shelby Iron Company, 626 Ship Island, Mississippi, 632 Tennessee River, 695 Tredegar Iron Works, 705 Washington Navy Yard, 745 Yazoo River, 769

Ideas and Movements Amphibious Warfare, 25 Anaconda Strategy, 27 Commerce Raiding, Confederate, 125 Discipline, Naval, 156

Guerre de Course, 269 Riverine Warfare, 592 Seamen, Recruitment of, 617

Technologies, Objects and Artifacts Alabama, CSS, 7 Albemarle, CSS, 16 Alligator, USS, 24 Arkansas, CSS, 30 Artillery Projectiles, Naval, 37 Atlanta, CSS, 39 Balloons, 47 Baltic, CSS, 48 Baron de Kalb, USS, 51 Benton, USS, 61 Black Hawk, USS, 62 Bormann Fuze, 74

Brooke Guns, 80 Brooklyn, USS, 81 Cairo, USS, 91 Cairo-class River Ironclads, 93 Carondelet, USS, 96 Chickamauga, CSS, 112 Cincinnati, USS, 116 Coal Torpedo, 118 Colt Navy Revolver, 123 Conestoga, USS, 128 Cottonclads, 130 Dahlgren Boat Howitzers, 141


Dahlgren Guns, 144 Davids, CSS, 146 Dictator, USS, 154 Dunderberg, USS, 160 Eastport, USS, 173 Essex, USS, 182 Fingal, CSS, 188 Floating Battery, 189 Florida, CSS, 190 Flotilla, 192 Forest Rose, USS, 197 Galena, USS, 249 Georgia, CSS, Commerce Raider, 256 Georgia, CSS, Ironclad Floating Battery, 258 Gunner’s Tools, 273 Harriet Lane, USS, 285 Hartford, USS, 287 H. L. Hunley, CSS, 296 Housatonic, USS, 302 Hulk, 305 Ironclads, Confederate, 314 Ironclads, Union, 319 Kearsarge, USS, 335 Keokuk, USS, 337 Laird Rams, 341 Lexington, USS, 350 Louisiana, CSS, 356 Louisville, USS, 357 Manassas, CSS, 368 Medal of Honor, U.S. Navy, 382 Medicine, Naval, 383 Michigan, USS, 393 Minnesota, USS, 395 Mississippi, CSS, 396 Mississippi, USS, 397 Missouri, CSS, 406 Monitor, USS, 427 Montauk, USS, 431 Mortar Boats, 437 Mortars, 438 Mound City, USS, 440

Nashville, CSS, Cruiser, 443 Nashville, CSS, Ironclad, 444 Naval Gunnery, 451 Naval Ordnance, 454 Neosho and Osage, USS, 467 Neuse, CSS, 468 New Ironsides, USS, 472 New Ironsides, USS, Attack on by CSS David, 474 Parrott Guns, 500 Passaic-class Monitors, 502 Pawnee, USS, 505 Pittsburg, USS, 517 Powhatan, USS, 542 Privateers, 546 Puritan, USS, 549 Quartermaster Transports, 553 Queen of the West, USS, 554 Raleigh, CSS, 558 Rappahannock, CSS, 563 Receiving Ship, 567 Richmond, CSS, 586 Richmond, USS, 588 Roanoke, USS, 596 Screw Propeller, 616 Shenandoah, CSS, 628 Side-wheeler, 637 Spar Torpedo, 648 Squib, CSS, 650 Star of the West, USS, 652 Steam Propulsion, 653 Stern-wheeler, 659 Stevens Battery, 660 Stone Fleets, 662 Stonewall, CSS, 663 Submarines, 679 Sumter, CSS, 683 Susquehanna, USS, 684 Tacony, CSS, 687 Tallahassee, CSS, 687 Tecumseh, USS, 691 Tender, 693

Tennessee, CSS, 694 Timberclads, 697 Tinclads, 698 Torpedoes, 701


Tyler, USS, 714 Vanderbilt, USS, 720 Virginia, CSS, 734 Webb, CSS, 747

Agreements, Reports, and Other Documents, Declaration of Paris, 152 Letters of Marque and Reprisal, 349

Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies, 489

Miscellaneous, Food and Drink aboard Ship, 192 Iron and Steel Manufacture, Impact on Ship Construction, 310 Monitor Mania, 430 Ranks, Union and Confederate Navies, 561

Shipboard Life, 630 Strategy, Confederate Naval, 667 Strategy, Union Naval, 671 Tonnage, 699


Index

Abbot, Trevett, 102 Adams, Charles Francis, Jr., 3 Adams, Charles Francis, Sr., 3–4, 257 Adams, Henry A., 4–5 Adams, Henry A., Jr., 5 Adams, John, 3, 447 Adams, John Quincy, 3, 4 Adelaide, 289 Advance, 113, 688 African American army troops, 435 African American sailors, 5–7, 6 (image), 488 medal of honor winners among, 6 restriction of their tasks aboard ship, 6 Agawan, 166 Alabama, xxvi, xxix, 4, 7–8, 9 (map), 10, 87, 88, 126, 127, 270, 336–337, 459, 460, 464, 592, 609, 621, 623, 669, 720–721 armament of, 8, 14 construction and equipment of, 7–8 See also Alabama claims; Alabama vs. Â�Hatteras; Alabama vs. Kearsarge Alabama claims, 10–11, 257 Alabama vs. Hatteras, 11–12, 127 Alabama vs. Kearsarge, 13–14, 13 (image), 15 (map), 16, 335, 374, 387, 623, 762–763 Alar, 256 Albany, 336 Albatross, 178, 286–287, 531 Albemarle, xxix, 16–18, 17 (image), 21, 130, 317, 346, 364, 528, 649 destruction of, 18–20, 137 Albemarle Sound, 20–21 Albemarle Sound, Battle of, 21–22 Alden, James, Jr., 22–24, 419, 421 Alexander II (tsar of Russia), 605, 606 Alexander, Edward Porter, 47

Alfred Robb, 514 Alliance, 121, 191 Alligator, 24–25, 63, 680 Alligator River, 21 Althea, 426 Amelia, 689 American Civil War, overview of naval operations during, xxv–xxx amount of coastline and river miles involved in naval operations, xxv Union blockade of the South, xxvi use of ironclads by both North and South, xxvi–xxvii Amphibious warfare, 25–27 Anaconda strategy (“Anaconda Plan” or “Scott’s Anaconda”), 27–29, 28 (image), 463, 592–593 Anacostia, 505, 539 Anderson, Aaron, 6 Anderson, Joseph Reid, 29–30, 706–707 Anderson, Robert, 240, 242, 243, 245 Andrews, W. S. G., 54 Appleton Belle, 513, 514 Appomattox, 174, 439, 639 Appomattox River, 24, 117, 680 Archer, 566 Archimedes, 616 Argus, 635, 661 Arizona, 609 Arkansas, xxviii, 30–32, 31 (image), 83, 274, 287, 315, 316, 358, 390, 406, 458, 529, 554, 566, 588, 715, 727 armament of, 31 and the Battle of Baton Rouge, 31–32, 55–56 Union attempts to destroy, 32–34 Arkansas River, 34–35

I-1

I-2 |â•‡ Index Armstrong, James, 35–36, 185 Armstrong, James F., 36 Army of Northern Virginia, xxviii, xxx, 205, 208, 331, 353, 387, 471, 590, 759, 760, 761 Aroostook, 158, 159 Arthur Middleton, 67 (image) Artillery projectiles, naval, 37–39, 37 (image) explosive shells, 37–38 fuses, 38 grape and canister shot, 38 solid shot, 37, 38 Atlanta, xxviii, 39–40, 39 (image), 188, 602, 614, 646, 647, 687, 711, 747, 747 Atlantic, 241, 535 Atlantic Blocking Squadron, 26, 40–41, 67, 391–392, 395 Augusta, 102, 103, 536 Avenger, 561 Bache, Alexander Dallas, 43–44, 64, 120, 510 Bache, B. F., 383 Bache, George Mifflin, 44–45, 733 Bailey, Joseph, 582–583 Bailey, Theodorus, 45–46, 104, 172, 220, 343, 477, 479 Bailey’s Dam. See Red River Campaign Balloons, 47–48 Baltic, 48–49, 186, 242, 245, 332, 415, 417, 444, 447, 505, 639 Bancroft, George, 49–50, 447, 635 Banks, Nathaniel P., 414, 526, 531–532, 608–609 actions in the Red River Campaign, 571–572, 577–578, 580, 581, 584 overconfidence of, 578 and the seizure of Confederate cotton, 575–576 See also Port Hudson, Louisiana, siege of Barnard, John G., 64 Barney, Joseph Nicholson, 51 Baron de Kalb, 51–53, 52 (image), 91, 94, 215, 291, 728, 730, 767, 768 Barron, James, 63 Barron, Samuel, 53–55, 257, 740 Barrow, Robert B., 296 Bartol, Barnabas, 472 Barton, Seth, 471

Barton, W. P. C., 383 Bates, James, 394 Baton Rouge, Battle of, 31–32, 55–56 casualties of, 56 Battery Bee, 435 Battery Beauregard, 435 Battery Gregg, 434, 435 Bayou City, 131, 251 Beall, John Y., 394 Beaufort, 174, 209, 277, 279, 439, 497, 591, 626, 709 Beauregard, Pierre G. T., 100, 101, 103, 233, 243, 309, 325–326, 388, 474, 476, 521, 646, 679 belief in the use of spar torpedoes, 648 Bell, Charles Heyer, 56–57 Bell, Henry Haywood, 58–59, 220 Bell, Lloyd James, 371 Belle Isle Works, 706, 707 Belmont, Battle of, 59–61 casualties of, 60 Benefit, 570 (image) Bennet, John W., 444 Benton, 61–62, 170, 265, 266, 275, 321, 388, 437 (image), 520, 521, 573, 574, 721, 722 Bessemer, Henry, 310 Biddle, James, 635 Bienville, 87, 354, 420, 536 Big Bethel, Battle of, 228, 480 Birney, William, 666 Bishop, Joshua, 268 Black Diamond, 186 Black Hawk, 62–63, 215, 291, 467, 573, 578, 580 armament of, 699 specifications of, 699 Black Warrior, 174 Blair, Montgomery, 241, 245 Blake, George Smith, 63–64, 447 Blake, Homer, 12 Blake, Robert, 6 Blockade Board, 64–66, 646 Blockade-runners, 71–74, 71 (image), 73 (image) Confederate regulations concerning, 72–73 role of in supplying medicinal drugs for the Confederacy, 387 success of, 73–74

Boggs, Charles S., 225 Boggs, William R., 573–574 Bombshell, 17, 21 Bonita, 719 Booth, John Wilkes, 353, 746 Bormann, Charles G., 74 Bormann Fuze, 74–75 Boston, 507, 508 Boston Navy Yard, 75–76 Boxer, 133 Bragg, Braxton, 199–200, 231–232, 466, 468, 476, 760 Branch, Lawrence O’Bryan, 469 Brand, Frederick B., 555 Brandywine, 496 Breckenridge, John C., 32, 55, 56, 151, 640 Breese, K. P., 207 Breese, Samuel Livingston, 76–77, 291 Brent, Joseph L., 555, 748 Bridge, Horatio, 77–78 Brooke, John Mercer, 78–79, 78 (image), 367, 446, 456, 458, 459, 528, 706, 734, 735 Brooke guns, xix, 80–81, 80 (image), 456 Brooklyn, 23, 58, 68, 81–82, 133, 135, 217, 220, 266, 369, 417, 419, 420, 421, 422, 522, 547, 652, 683, 692 (image), 723 collision with the Kineo, 223 drunkenness aboard, 194 Brooklyn Navy Yard, 82–83 Brown, Albert Gallatin, 453 Brown, George, 554, 729 Brown, Henry, 231 Brown, Isaac Newton, 31, 32, 33, 83–84 Brown, John, 373 Brown, John S., 292 Browne, Harry, 194 Brunel, I. K., 617 Buchanan, Franklin, 84–86, 85 (image), 140, 186, 198, 277, 278, 332, 447, 458, 691, 694, 746, 751 actions at the Battle of Mobile Bay, 86, 415, 420, 423, 424, 425 as an advocate for ironclads, 85 promotion of to rear admiral, 85 Buchanan, James, 231, 245, 652, 676, 705 Buckner, Simon Bolivar, 202, 204 Buell, Don Carlos, 210, 466, 517, 518

Indexâ•‡ | I-3 Bulloch, James Dunwody, 7, 39, 87–88, 125, 126, 188, 190, 256, 317, 367, 628, 740, 759 Burnside, Ambrose, 105, 264, 469–470, 598 Bushnell, Cornelius, 312, 313 Bushnell, David, 181, 616, 679 Butler, Benjamin F., 25, 26–27, 118, 119, 166, 217, 218, 228, 476, 480, 526 actions at the attack on Fort Fisher, 205–207 as “Beast Butler,” 479 Butt, Walter Raleigh, 88–90 Cahill, Thomas, 55 Cairo, 91–93, 92 (image), 94, 170, 388, 441, 619, 703, 727, 769 Cairo Naval Station, 95 Caleb Cushing, 566 Calhoun, 293, 547 Calhoun, John C., 377 California, 370 Camanche, 502, 503 Cameron, Simon, 241, 242 Camp Beall, 371 Camp Johnston, 60 Campbell, John A., 284 Campbell, William P. A., 564, 565 Canandaigua, 658 Canby, Edward R. S., 412, 414–415, 418, 426, 584 Cannon, Walker, 474 Cannstadt, Pavel L’vovich Schilling von, 701 Canonicus, 207, 602 Cape Fear River, 114, 199, 201, 760, 761 Carondelet, 31, 83, 91, 94, 96–97, 96 (image), 170, 203, 211, 212, 265, 327, 388, 437 (image), 520, 573, 577, 583, 656, 722, 742 Carter, Jonathan H., 97–98 Carter, Samuel Powhatan, 98–100, 356, 466 Carter, William F., 564 Casco, 320–321, 745 (image) Catskill, 109, 431, 435, 502 Cayuga, 46, 217, 220, 221, 222 Cecile, 363 Ceres, 21, 22, 266 Chaffin’s Bluff, Battle of. See Fort Harrison and Chaffin’s Bluff, Battle of Chambliss, N. R., 620 Chameleon, 689, 759

I-4 |â•‡ Index Champion, 267 Champion No. 3, 581, 583 Champion No. 5, 581–582, 583 Chancellorsville, Battle of, xxviii Chaplain, James C., 175, 744 Charleston, 83, 316 Charleston, South Carolina, xxvi, xxix, 24, 65, 68, 72, 83, 100–102, 140, 227, 296, 303, 309, 338, 371, 436, 459, 460, 464, 501, 537, 587, 602, 614, 663, 665, 668, 679, 712, 713 blockade of, 68, 101 Confederate naval attack on Union blockade of, 102–103 defenses of, 100–101 symbolic importance of, 100 See also Charleston, South Carolina, Du Pont’s attack on; Fort Sumter Charleston, South Carolina, Du Pont’s attack on, 103–111, 164–165, 431, 646–647, 765 attacks on Fort McAllister, 106–107 attempt to block the main channel, 104 casualties of, 110 and the defensive strength of Charleston’s forts, 105–106 Du Pont’s strategy concerning, 107–108 ironclads as key to Union attack, 106 preparations for defense of Charleston, 105 specific damage suffered by Union ships Â�during, 110 Charleston Harbor, 101, 103, 107, 110, 239 (map), 297, 316, 503, 543, 647, 743 See also Fort Sumter Charlotte Navy Yard, 112 Chase, Salmon, 47 Chase, William, 231 Chattahoochee, 333, 558, 614 Cheatham, Frank, 60 Cheeney, William, 680 Chenango, 119 Cheops, 88, 318 Cherbourg, France, xxix, 8, 13, 257, 337, 374, 459, 464 Cherub, 183 Chesapeake, 661 Chew, Robert L., 242 Chicago, 365 Chickamauga, 87, 112–114, 126, 688, 759 armament of, 113

specifications of, 112–113 Chickasaw, 170, 322, 417, 419, 420, 421, 424, 425 Chickasaw Bluffs, 233, 727 Chickasaw Bluffs, Battle of, 114–116, 292, 728 casualties of, 115–116, 728 Chicora, 102, 106, 259, 303, 309, 316, 528, 587, 614, 645, 646, 665, 712, 713 Chillicothe, 467, 573, 577, 578, 730, 767, 768 Chimo, 745 (image) Choctaw, 291, 292, 573 Churchill, Thomas J., 215 Cincinnati, 44, 94, 116–117, 117 (image), 170, 211, 212, 215, 437 (image), 441, 519, 594, 656, 658, 733 sinking of, 520 Cinecqa, 381 City of Memphis, 385, 386 City of New York, 599 City Point, Virginia, 117–118 City-class ships. See Ironclads, Cairo-class river ironclads Clara Dolsen, 754 Clarence, 566, 687 Clermont, 653 Clifton, 250, 251, 252, 253, 609–610, 723 Coal torpedo, 118–119 Coast Blockading Squadron, 40, 41, 67, 391, 539, 646, 676 Coast Survey, U.S., 43, 63, 64, 119–120, 134, 344, 347, 363, 510, 585, 643, 758, 759 Collier, Elisha, 122 Collins, John, 135, 420 Collins, Napoleon, 120–121, 191 Colonel Lovell, 389–390, 401, 402, 519 Colorado, 46, 263, 697 Colt, Samuel, 122–123, 701 Colt navy revolver, 123–124 Columbia, 316, 528 Columbus, 497 Columbus, Georgia, naval yard of, 124–125 Columbus, Kentucky (the “Confederate Â�Gibraltar”), 59–60 Comet, 263 Commerce raiding, xxvi, 125–128, 126 (image), 459–460 cost to the Union in hunting commerce Â�raiders, 127 procurement of raiding ships by the Confederacy, 125–126

total number of Union merchants ships taken by raiders, 127 See also Guerre de course Commodore Barney, 136, 651, 678, 709 Commodore Hull, 21, 22 Commodore Jones, 147, 678, 703 Commodore McDonough, 666 Commodore Morris, 651 Commodore Perry, 439, 600, 651 Concord, 601 Conestoga, 128–129, 169, 203, 211, 350, 404, 437 (image), 512, 513–514, 593, 619, 696, 698 reinforcement of with heavy guns and oak plating, 714–715 See also White River Expedition Confederacy, the, 3, 152 balloon program of, 47–48 extensive coastline of, 65 See also Confederacy, blockade of; Confederacy, naval strategy of; Navy, Confederate States of America (CSA) Confederacy, blockade of, 66–71, 67 (image), 462–463, 464, 548, 646, 673–674 blockade running, 68 cost of, 70 debate concerning the effectiveness of, 69–70 financial rewards of blockade running, 68–69 increase in the number of blockaders, 69 organization of, 67 Confederacy, naval strategy of, 667–671 advantage of the South’s defensive position, 667 defensive strategy of, 670 and Jefferson Davis’s strategic mistake of supporting a cotton embargo, 667–668 lack of coastal defense policy, 668 offensive strategy based on the use of ironclads, 669–670 strategy for breaking the Union blockade, 668–669 “Confederate Gibraltar,” 59–60 Confederate River Defense Fleet, 130, 218, 401–402, 594 defeat of at Memphis, 725 Confederate States, 330, 567 Confederate Torpedo Bureau, 702–703

Indexâ•‡ | I-5 Congress, xxvii, 85, 89, 133, 163, 277, 278, 279, 281, 330, 344, 360, 365, 375, 522, 644–645, 736 sinking of, 643–644 Connor, David, 268, 269 Conrad, Charles M., 453, 669 Constellation, 45, 601, 635, 661, 690, 697 Constitution, 22–23, 63, 163, 286, 344, 363, 380, 447, 496, 635, 661, 690, 743 Cook, Joseph J., 250–251, 255 Cooke, James Wallace, 17, 21, 129–130 C. P. Williams, 431 Corcoran, Michael, 179 Corps d’Afrique, 576 Cort, Henry, 310 Corwin, 758 Corypheus, 251, 252, 255 Cotton Plant, 17, 21 Cottonclads, 130–131, 251, 402 Countess, 574 Couronne, 13 Courtenay, Thomas Edgeworth, 118–119 Covington, 162, 573, 583 Cox, Jacob Dolson, 761 Coxetter, Louis Mitchell, 131–132 Craven, Thomas Tingey, 132–134, 223–224, 266–267, 664, 723 Craven, Tunis Augustus Macdonough, 132, 134–135, 420, 421 Cricket, 267, 268, 573, 574, 577, 578, 581, 582 Crimean War (1853–1856), 25, 190, 456, 702 See also Declaration of Paris (1856) Crocker, Frederick, 609, 610 Crosby, J. N., 304 Crowley, R. O., 678 Crozet, Claudius, 29 Crusader, 134 C. S. Bushnell and Company, 313, 319 Cumberland, xxvii, 85, 139, 177, 195, 198, 269, 277–279, 290, 330, 354, 375, 483, 504, 505, 508, 522, 557, 559, 619, 643, 736, 744 Cumberland River, xxvii, 26, 135–136, 196, 202, 696 Curlew, 536, 600 Curtis, Samuel, 339 Cushing, Alonzo, 138

I-6 |â•‡ Index Cushing, William Barker, xxix, 17, 18–19, 136–138, 137 (image), 346, 649 attack and destruction of the Albemarle by, 137 Cussler, Clive, 298 Cyane, 300, 635, 661, 676 D. A. January, 385–386 Dahlgren, John Adolph Bernard, xxix, 101, 108, 111, 139–141, 139 (image), 146, 196, 288, 309, 333, 338, 353, 435, 436, 448, 456, 475, 604, 647, 705, 746 attack of on Charleston Harbor, 237, 238 development of Dahlgren guns, 140 development of boat howitzers, 139–140 friendship with Lincoln, 140 See also Dahlgren boat howitzers; Dahlgren naval guns; Stono River Expedition Dahlgren, Ulrich, 140 Dahlgren boat howitzers, 139–140, 141–143, 142 (image) Dahlgren naval guns, xix, 140, 144–145, 145 (image), 321, 322, 455 Dahlia, 570 (image) Dai Ching, 666 Dale, 134, 147 Dana, Richard Henry, Jr., 548–549 Dandelion, 110, 338 Daniel Webster, 387 Danmark, 317 David, 101, 146, 259, 604, 647 attack of on the New Ironsides, 474–475 Davids, xxix, 146, 459, 474, 649, 670, 679, 680, 713 Davidson, Hunter, 147–148, 650–651, 677–678, 703 Davies, Rhys, 706 Davis, Charles Henry, 32, 33, 64, 148–149, 177, 233, 234, 312, 314, 388, 389, 405, 510, 512, 560, 594, 642, 723, 754 securing of the Upper Mississippi River by, 725, 727 See also Plum Point Bend, Battle of Davis, Henry, xxvii, xxviii Davis, Jefferson C., 466 Davis, Jefferson Finis, 89, 131, 149–152, 150 (image), 178, 179, 229, 243, 350, 394, 446, 457, 471, 546, 622, 678, 732, 760 “Cotton Diplomacy” of, 667–668 opinion of Stephen R. Mallory, 453

personality of, 151 political career of, 150–151 as president of the Confederate States of America (CSA), 151 threat of to hang Union officers, 547 Davis, John, 175 Dawn, 226, 227, 431 Daylight, 709 De Kraft, J. C. P., 420 de Lhuys, Drouyn, 564, 565 De Soto, 555, 729 de Villeroi, Brutus, 680 Deane, Francis B., 706 Decatur, Stephen, Jr., 56–57 Declaration of Paris (1856), 152, 546 Decotah, 625 Deerfield, 337 Deerhound, 14, 16 Defense, 218 Defiance, 401, 402 Delaware, 36, 166, 380, 600, 604 Demologos, 190, 654 Devastation, 617 Dewey, George, 153–154, 222, 225 DeWitt, Chester B., 632 Dick Fulton, 559, 561 Dictator, 154–156, 320, 549, 602 Dillard, R. K., 118 Discipline, naval, 156 Dispatch, 344 Disraeli, Benjamin, 377, 640, 708 Dixon, George F., 297, 304 Dobbin, James C., 449, 450 Dolphin, 57, 153, 363 Dornin, Thomas Aloysius, 156–157 Dorothea, 701 Dorsey, Sarah, 151 Douglas, Stephen A., 150 Dowling, Richard W., 609 Downes, John, 747 Dr. Beatty, 555, 748 Drake, Joseph, 211 Drayton, Percival, 157–158, 424 Drayton, Thomas F., 158 Drewry, 166, 209, 330, 709, 710–711 Drewry, Augustus H., 159 Drewry’s Bluff, First Battle of, 158–160, 185, 187, 249–250, 313, 371 casualties of, 160

Drewry’s Bluff, Second Battle of, 371 Du Pont, Francis H., 346 Du Pont, Samuel F., xxvi, xxix, 24, 25, 26, 41, 64, 65, 102, 140, 163–165, 164 (image), 196, 237, 305, 338, 343, 353, 373, 435, 503, 602, 647, 662, 714 and the capture of Port Royal, 164, 646 as head of the Naval Efficiency Board, 449–450 interest of in naval professionalism and reform, 163–164 naval boards served on, 164 planning of the attacks on Fort McAllister, 226, 227 use of the Stone Fleet by, 646 See also Charleston, South Carolina, Du Pont’s attack on; Port Royal Sound, Battle of Dunbar, 513, 514 Duncan, Johnson Kelly, 218, 479 Dunderberg, 160–162, 349 armament of, 161 specifications of, 161, 321 transfer of to the French navy, 162 Dunnington, John W., 215 Dunn’s Bayou, engagement at, 162–163 Dutch Gap, Battle of, 165–167 Eads, James Buchanan, xxvii, 52, 61, 169–171, 169 (image), 349, 404, 467, 593 construction of river ironclads by, 93–94 Eagle, 47, 326 Eagle, Henry, 171–172 Early, Jubal A., 355 East Gulf Blockading Squadron, 36, 41, 46, 67, 172–173, 232, 271, 272, 343, 382, 464, 551, 615, 673, 675, 753 Eastport, 173–174, 441, 512, 514, 515, 573, 574, 578 groundings and final destruction of during the Red River Campaign, 576–577, 580–581 Ed Howard, 97 Edith. See Chickamauga El Majidi, 629 Elgar, John, 311 Ella and Annie, 68 Elizabeth City, North Carolina, 359, 360, 440, 484, 600, 604 Elizabeth City, North Carolina, Battle of, 130, 174–175, 264, 497

Indexâ•‡ | I-7 Elizabeth River, 151, 171, 277, 283, 284, 329, 428, 480, 481 Ellet, Alfred Washington, 33, 175–176, 177, 390, 398–399, 554, 560, 561, 723, 729 Ellet, Charles, Jr., xxvii, 176–178, 234, 388, 389, 554, 594 death of, 390 See also Ram Fleet, U.S. Elliot, Gilbert, 16 Ellis, 130, 136, 174 Enchantress Affair, the, 178–179 Engle, Frederick, 179–180 Enoch Train, 368 Enrica, 7 Enterprise, 620 Eolus, 73 (image) Epervier, 690 Era, 267 Era No. 5, 555, 729 Ericsson, John, 85, 107, 148, 154, 180–182, 181 (image), 313–314, 319, 337, 428, 507, 597, 616, 654 design of the Monitor, 181 design of the Princeton, 180, 617 Erie, 133, 163 Essex, 31, 33–34, 56, 182, 183, 211, 212, 321, 529, 531, 574, 729 Etna, 719 Eutaw, 709 Evans, William E., 257 Experiment, 661 Fairfield, 344 Falkland, 538 Falmouth, 134, 336 Fanny, 174, 289, 439 Farragut, David Glasgow, xxvii, xxviii, 23, 26, 32, 33, 49, 58, 81, 83, 108, 134, 158, 183–184, 183 (image), 230, 266, 271, 287, 301, 332, 346, 369, 447, 494, 509, 526, 528, 566, 595, 606, 655–656 actions at the Battle of Mobile Bay, 184, 412, 414, 415, 417, 418–22, 423, 424, 425–426 and the capture of New Orleans, 133, 184, 396, 753 as the first vice-admiral and full admiral in the U.S. Navy, 562 relationship with David D. Porter, 183, 524 run past Vicksburg, 723–724, 725–727

I-8 |â•‡ Index Farragut, David Glasgow (continued) See also Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s run past; Vicksburg Campaign Farrand, Ebenezer, 185–186, 445 Fauntleroy, Charles Magill, 187–188 Faxon, William, 752 Ferret, 57 Field, Charles, 166 Fingal, 39, 87, 188, 614, 646 Finn, Tim, 632 Firefly, 614 Fitch, Graham N., 233, 754, 755 Fitch, John, 653 Fitch, Le Roy, 189 Flag, 602 Floating batteries, 189–190 Florida, xxvi, xxix, 54, 85, 87, 88, 121, 126, 126 (image), 190–192, 261, 263, 295, 363–364, 459, 460, 464, 544, 565, 664, 669, 687 armament of, 190–191 number of Union merchant ships captured by, 127, 363 Florida 2. See Tacony Flotillas, 192 Floyd, John B., 202, 204 Flusser, Charles W., 21 Food/drink/rations, aboard ship, 192–194 alcoholic beverages, 193–194 canned meat, 193 congressionally approved daily ration for the navy, 193 Foote, Andrew H., xxvii, 26, 60, 111, 129, 140, 170, 195–197, 195 (image), 210, 218, 233, 242, 301, 391, 405, 437, 441, 453, 463, 512, 518, 519, 525, 593, 696 actions against Fort Donelson, 196, 202, 203, 594 death of, 647 service of in China, 195–196 support for temperance in the navy, 194 See also Island Number 10, Battle of Foreign Enlistment Act (1819), 87, 126 Forest Rose, 193, 197–198, 573, 767 Forrest, 174, 439, 600 Forrest, French, 198–199, 290 Forrest, Nathan Bedford, 115, 189, 204, 727 Fort Adams, 43

Fort Anderson and Wilmington, North Carolina, Union operations against, 199–201 Fort Barrancas, 231, 240 Fort Bartow, 359, 599, 600 Fort Beauregard, 534, 536, 537 Fort Brady, 587, 710 Fort Campbell, 201 Fort Clark, 53, 54, 289, 290 Fort DeRussy, 512, 573, 574, 732 Fort Donelson, xxvii, 26, 61, 62, 95, 96, 116, 170, 196, 210, 212, 214, 232, 233, 593, 674, 715, 742 See also Fort Donelson, Battle of Fort Donelson, Battle of, 129, 136, 202–205, 203 (image), 358, 405, 517, 594 casualties of, 204 Confederate counterattack, 203–204 Union strategy during, 202–203 Fort Donelson, 71 (image) Fort Fisher, 26, 114, 199, 619, 709, 759, 760 Fort Fisher Campaign, 205–208, 206 (map), 373, 449, 526 casualties of, 208 Fort Forrest, 599 Fort Gaines, 412, 415, 418, 419, 425 Fort Gibson, 607–608 Fort Griffin, 609, 610 Fort Harrison and Chaffin’s Bluff, Battle of, 208–210 Fort Hatteras, 54, 289, 290 Fort Heiman, 210, 212 Fort Henry, xxvii, 60, 62, 95, 96, 116, 232, 233, 350, 674, 703, 715, 742 See also Fort Henry, Battle of Fort Henry, Battle of, 210–212, 211 (image), 213 (map), 214, 405, 593–594, 696 Fort Hindman, 573, 574, 577, 578, 581, 582, 583 Fort Hindman, 26, 44, 52, 62, 116, 351, 358, 634, 715, 728 See also Fort Hindman, Battle of Fort Hindman, Battle of, 35, 214–216 Fort Huger, 599 Fort Jackson, 26, 238, 240, 479, 526 Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s run past, 216–226, 217 (image), 356, 369, 396, 409–410, 434, 477, 595 casualties of, 221, 225

Confederate fleet, 218–219 Farragut’s actions against Confederate obstructions placed in the river, 219–220 Farragut’s fleet, 217 formation of Farragut’s squadron, 220–221 Union army troops supporting Farragut, 217 Fort Johnson, 105, 236, 243 Fort Lee, 201 Fort Macon, 36, 264, 604 Fort McAllister, 25, 106–107, 158, 431, 613 Union attacks on, 226–228 Fort McRee, 231, 232, 271, 382 Fort Mears, 201 Fort Monroe, 228–229, 284, 480, 522, 551, 743 Fort Morgan, 229–230, 230 (image), 240, 412 involvement of in the Battle of Mobile Bay, 415, 418, 419–420, 422, 423–424, 425 Fort Moultrie, 105, 106, 107, 109, 110, 238, 243, 435 Fort Pemberton, 52, 656, 730, 767, 768 Fort Pickens, xxv, 5, 23, 35, 231–232, 366, 525, 743 See also Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, relief efforts of Fort Pillow, xxvii, 170, 177, 232–234, 325, 326, 339, 559–560 reinforced defenses of, 233 Fort Powell, 415, 417, 420, 425 Fort Pulaski, 613, 614 Fort St. Philip, 23, 26, 46, 58, 81, 240, 315, 356–357, 410, 434, 477, 526, 595, 758 See also Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Â�Farragut’s run past Fort Severn, 50 Fort Stephenson, 717 Fort Sumter, xxv, 25, 101, 158, 234–237, 235 (image), 239 (map), 245, 338, 435, 743 Confederate occupation of, 236 construction of, 234–236 Union attacks on, 237–238, 239 (map), 647 vulnerability of, 240 See also Charleston, South Carolina, Du Pont’s attack on; Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, relief efforts of Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, relief efforts of, 240–244, 245 Fort Thompson, 469, 470

Indexâ•‡ | I-9 Fort Wagner, xxix, 101, 105, 237, 432, 434, 435, 436 Fort Walker, 158, 534, 536–537 Fort Warren, 54, 89, 244, 259, 332, 377, 410, 640, 708, 749, 758 Foster, John G., 448, 470, 665, 666 Fountleroy, Charles M., 565 Fox, Gustavus Vasa, xxix, 41, 43, 64, 65, 104, 164, 170, 200, 241, 245–247, 245 (image), 320, 353, 391, 525, 646, 662, 711, 723, 752 hardworking and gregarious nature of, 246 as proponent of an attack on New Orleans, 216 proposal of to relieve Fort Sumter, 245 France, 8, 11, 88, 151, 162, 257, 312, 313, 317, 321, 349, 462, 564–565, 606, 640, 660, 668, 701 See also Cherbourg, France Franklin, 45, 163 Franklin, William B., 577, 578, 580, 609, 610 Fred Kopp, 24 Fredericksburg, 166, 209, 259, 317, 330, 528, 587, 709, 710 Fredericksburg, First Battle of, 47 Freeman, Martin, 422 Frémont, John C., 59, 61, 196, 404, 405, 437, 593, 602 Frolic, 294 Fry, Joseph, 755 Fugitive Slave Law (1850), 377, 705 Fulton, 457, 654, 767 Fulton II, 654 Fulton, Robert, 189–190, 311, 653, 654 development of torpedoes by, 701 Gaines, 417, 423, 692 (image) Gaines’ Mill, Battle of, 29 Galena, 158, 159–160, 181, 185, 249–250, 249 (image), 264, 313, 319, 383, 417, 419, 602, 625, 643 Galveston, Battle of, 12, 250–253, 753 Confederate counterattack, 251 initial Union blockade of Galveston, 250 Union capture of Galveston, 255–256 Union surrender, 253 Galveston, Texas, 253–255 See also Galveston, Battle of

I-10 |â•‡ Index Gardner, Franklin, 531, 532 Gazelle, 573 General Bragg, 268, 402, 519, 520 General Beauregard, 132, 390, 401, 402, 519 General Breckinridge, 218, 402 General Lovell, 218, 402 General Pillow, 699 General Polk, 97 General Price, 129, 265, 440, 619, 722 General Quitman, 218 General Sherman, 602 General Sterling Price, 390, 402, 519, 520 General Sumter, 402, 519, 520 General Thompson, 402, 519 General Van Dorn, 402, 519, 520, 521 Genessee, 531 George G. Baker, 262 George M. Smith, 508 George Page, 330, 639 George Peabody, 289 Georgia (commerce raider), 13, 54, 87, 126, 133, 190, 256–257, 335, 564, 565, 614 Georgia (ironclad floating battery), 258, 315–316, 545 Georgian, 394 Geranium, 666 Germantown, 433, 739 Gettysburg, xxviii Gibraltar, 684 Gibson, Randall L., 412 Gillmore, Quincy A., 101, 237, 435, 436 Gilmer, Thomas, 506 Giraffe, 758 Glassell, William T., 146, 258–260, 474, 649 Glendy, William Marshall, 260–261 Glide, 215 Gloire, 190, 311, 319, 472, 660 Godon, Sylvanus William, 261–262 Golden Rocket, 126, 683 Golden Rule, 544 Goldsborough, John Rodgers, 262–263 Goldsborough, Louis Malesherbes, 41, 158, 263–265, 306, 346, 409, 481, 484–485, 604, 625 actions during the capture of Roanoke Island, 598–600 Gordon Coleman and Company, 564 Gosport Navy Yard. See Norfolk Navy Yard

Governor, 591 Governor Moore, 218, 224, 225 Grafton, E. C., 419 Grampus, 58, 690 Grand Duke, 286 Grand Era, 406, 555, 747 Grand Gulf, Battle of, 265–266 Union shelling of Grand Gulf, 266–267 Granger, Gordon, 230, 412, 417, 419 Granite City, 609 Grant, Ulysses S., xxvii, xxviii, xxx, 26, 59, 62, 95, 105, 118, 196, 200, 205, 207, 214, 218, 274, 325, 353, 399, 405, 412, 463, 526, 557, 583, 593–594, 595, 657, 755, 760, 767 actions of at the Battle of Chickasaw Bluffs, 114–115 actions of at Pittsburg Landing, 517–518 desire of to capture Mobile, Alabama, 569 Overland Campaign of, 417–418 plans to attack Vicksburg from the south, 721–722 See also Fort Donelson, Battle of; Fort Henry, Battle of; Hayne’s Bluff, Mississippi, Union demonstration at; Red River Campaign; Trent’s Reach, Battle of; Vicksburg Campaign Grape shot. See Artillery projectiles, naval Great Britain, 617 Great Britain, xxvi, xxviii, 10, 11, 72, 151, 312, 313, 459, 488, 564, 606, 668, 701 banning of privateers from British ports, 547 See also Trent Affair, the Green, Thomas, 579 Greene, Samuel D., 765 Greene, Theodore P., 172 Greenville, Mississippi, Union operations in the vicinity of, 267–268 Gregory, Francis Hoyt, 268–269 Gregory, Thomas B., 519 Greyhound, 119 Grimes, James W., 312 Guerre de course, 269–270, 365 Guest, John, 479 Gulf Coast Blockading Squadron, 65, 67, 270–271, 381–382, 393, 522, 763 Gulf of Mexico, 272–273 See also Gulf Coast Blockading Squadron

Gunboats, Confederate. See Cottonclads Gunner’s tools, 273–274 Gwin, William, 274–275, 274 (image), 513, 518 Habana, 683 Hagood, Johnson, 760, 761 Halleck, Henry W., 47, 210, 233, 325, 388, 405, 517, 519, 569, 572–573, 593, 754, 755 refusal to support Farragut in his run past Vicksburg, 724, 726 Halligan, John, 680 Hampton, 166, 709, 710 Hampton Roads, Virginia, 283–284, 709 Hampton Roads, Virginia, Battle of, 277–279, 278 (image), 280 (map), 281–283, 395, 463–464, 480, 559 Handy, Robert, 294 Harriet Lane, 51, 242, 245, 250, 251, 252, 255, 285–286, 289, 290, 406, 479, 505, 585, 723 armament of, 285 Harris, John, 372 Harrison, Nathaniel, 178–179 Hart, John Elliott, 286–287 Hartford, 58, 86, 135, 217, 220, 222–223, 259, 263, 287–288, 332, 415, 417, 419, 420, 421–422, 423, 424, 425, 531, 692 (image), 695, 723, Harwood, Andrew Allen, 288 Hassler, Ferdinand Rudolph, 119–120 Hatch, John P., 448, 666 Hatteras, 337, 459, 623 See also Hatteras vs. Alabama Hatteras vs. Alabama, 11–12, 127 Hatteras Inlet, xxvi, 25, 26, 53 Union assault on, 289–291 Haya Maru, 689 Hayne’s Bluff, Mississippi, Union demonstration at, 291–292 Head of Passes, Battle of, 292–294, 368–369 Heiman, Adolphus, 210, 211 Helene, 262 Henry, Joseph, 510 Henry Clay, 722 Henry James, 250, 255, 607 Herald, 132, 550 Hitchcock, Robert Bradley, 295

Indexâ•‡ | I-11 H. L. Hunley, xxix, 85, 101, 146, 296–298, 297 (image), 304, 411, 459, 647, 651, 679, 680 Hoel, William R., 520 Hoff, Henry Kuhn, 298–299 Hoge, Francis Lyell, 299–300 Hoke, Robert F., 17, 21, 207, 468, 471, 472, 760, 761 Hollins, George Nichols, 293, 300–301, 325, 326, 368 Holly Springs, Mississippi, 114, 115 Home Squadron, 67 Hornet, 198, 635, 650, 709, 710 Horwitz, Phineas Jonathan, 302 Hospital ships. See Medicine, naval, hospital ships Housatonic, xxix, 101, 103, 106, 146, 298, 302–304, 303 (image), 459, 646, 651, 713 armament of, 303 sinking of, 304, 647, 680 specifications of, 303 Hudson,157 Huger, Thomas B., 221–222, 224 Hull, F. S., 126 Hull, Joseph Bartine, 305–306, 481 Hume, W. Y. C., 327 Hunchback, 166, 709, 711 Hunley, Horace L., 296, 297, 679 Hunt, Timothy Atwater, 306–307 Hunter, David, 104 Hunter, M. T., 284 Hunter, Robert, 131 Hunter, Thomas T., 290 Huntsville, 185, 317, 415, 417 Huron, 619 Hussar, 309 Illinois, 522 Independence, 133, 344, 635, 690 Indianola, 554–555, 729, 747 See also Indianola vs. Queen of the West Indianola vs. Queen of the West, 554–556 Ingraham, Duncan Nathaniel, 102, 309–310, 458 Intelligent Whale, 681 Iron and steel manufacturing, impact on ship construction, 310–312 Ironclad Board, 312–314, 642–643 “Report on Ironclad Vessels,” 313

I-12 |â•‡ Index Ironclads, xxvi–xxvii, 107 Cairo-class river ironclads, 93–94, 321–322 Canonicus-class, 320 Casco-class, 320–321 Cumberland-class, 316 Huntsville-class, 317 Milwaukee-class, 322 Richmond-class, 316 See also Ironclad Board; Ironclads, Confederate; Ironclads, Union; “Pook Turtles” Ironclads, Confederate, 314–319 appropriations for, 314 problems obtaining iron for, 315 the “Scottish Sea Monster,” 317 See also Laird Rams Ironclads, Union, 319–323 appropriations for, 319, 320 design blunders of the Casco-class monitors, 320–321 Ericsson monitors, 320 and “monitor-mania,” 320, 430 Iroquois, 217, 220, 224, 286, 357, 495, 723, 759 Isaac N. Seymour, 21 Isaac Smith, 536 Isherwood, Benjamin Franklin, 323–324, 482 Island Number 10, xxvii, 26, 61, 96, 170, 196, 233, 386 Island Number 10, Battle of, 324–328 abandonment of New Madrid, 325 bombardment of Island Number 10 by mortar boats, 437 (image) building of the Union canal from Island Number 8 to New Madrid, 326–327 casualties of, 325, 327 Confederate fortifications at Island Number 10, 325 consequences to the South due to the loss of, 327 Island Queen, 394 Isondiga, 614, 747 Itasca, 217, 219–220, 224, 417, 419 Ivy, 293, 722 Jackall, 690 Jackson, 128, 219, 293, 409, 723, 758 Jackson, Andrew, 750 Jacob Bell, 126 (image)

Jacobi, Moritz-Hermann, 701, 702 James Island, 436 James River, xxvii, 24, 171, 184, 185, 329–330, 446, 540, 589, 590, 645 mining of, 677, 678 See also Drewry’s Bluff, First Battle of; Dutch Gap, Battle of; Fort Harrison and Chaffin’s Bluff, Battle of; James River, Battle of the; James River Squadron; Trent’s Reach, Battle of James River, Battle of the, 89, 410 James River Squadron, 159, 165, 199, 259, 277, 330–331, 371, 410, 446, 484, 590, 623, 625, 638, 691, 757 Jamestown, 44, 51, 159, 185, 286, 330, 625, 691, 712, 744 Jansen, Marin H., 256 Japan, 256 Jefferson, Thomas, 745–746 Jefferson Davis, 131–132, 178 John Adams, 4, 22, 53, 286, 739 John F. Carr, 251 John Y. Mason, 23 John Laird and Sons, 4, 88, 317–318 Johnson, Andrew, 246, 752 Johnson, Jeffries, 704 Johnston, Albert Sidney, 60, 202, 325, 518 Johnston, James D., 331–332, 420, 425 Johnston, Joseph E., xxx, 89, 732 Johnston, Oscar F., 638 Jones, Andrew, 627 Jones, Catesby ap Roger, 78, 159, 185, 279, 333–334, 621 Joseph, 547 Joseph H. Toone, 293, 294, 524 Joseph Lane, 545 Jouffroy d’Abbans, Claude de, 653 Juliet, 573, 581–582 Julius Smith, 514 Katahdin, 217, 220, 266, 544, 723 Kate Bruce, 614 Kearsarge, 10, 153, 335–336, 337, 459, 683 armament of, 14 See also Kearsarge vs. Alabama Kearsarge vs. Alabama, 13–14, 13 (image), 15 (map), 16, 127, 374, 387, 623, 762–763

Kell, John McIntosh, 12, 336–337, 710 Kennebec, 217, 220, 417, 723 Kennington, John, 489 Kennon, Beverly, 224–225 Kensington, 607 Kenyon, Charles, 383 Keokuk, 108, 109–110, 321, 337–339 Key West, Florida, 270 Keystone State, 102, 646, 712 Kickapoo, 170, 322 Kilty, Augustus H., 339–340, 440, 520, 754, 755 Kineo, 217, 220, 223, 266, 477, 531, 729 collision with the Brooklyn, 223 Kinney, John, 421 Kroehl, Julius, 680 Lackawanna, 417, 419, 424 Lady Davis, 614 Lady Stirling, 73 (image) Lafayette, 265, 573, 722, 742 Laird Rams, xxviii, 4, 88, 317–318, 341, 739 Lamb, William, 205, 208 Lancaster, 298, 342, 559, 561 Lancaster, John, 14 Langthorne, Amos R., 267 Lapsley, John W., 627 Lardner, James Lawrence, 172, 343–344 Latrobe, Benjamin, 746 Laurel, 628, 740 Laurel Hill, 266 Lavallette, Elie Augustus Frederick, 344–345, 432, 610, 635 Law, Richard L., 253 Lawrence, 391 Lawson, John, 6 Lee, Albert, 575, 577, 578–579 Lee, Francis D., 648–649 Lee, Robert E., xxviii, xxx, 79, 185, 209, 331, 353, 412, 471, 493, 537, 638, 663, 682 See also Army of Northern Virginia Lee, Samuel Phillips, 18, 19, 62, 113, 134, 137, 345–347, 405, 485, 651, 688, 714 Lee, Sidney Smith, 347–348, 493 Lehigh, 238, 502, 666 Lenapee, 200 Lenthall, John, 160, 348–349 LeRoy, William E., 425

Indexâ•‡ | I-13 Letters of marque and reprisal, 349–350, 546 Levant, 635, 661 Lexington, 44, 59, 129, 169, 211, 215, 274, 350–351, 404, 467, 512, 513, 514, 515, 518, 593, 594, 635, 658, 696, 698, 741, 753, 755 reinforcement of with heavy guns and oak plating, 714–715 service of in the Red River Campaign, 573, 577, 578, 580, 583 Lightning, 637 Lilian, 689 Lincoln, Abraham, xxv, xxvii, 3, 28, 50, 104, 151, 178, 184, 210, 216, 231, 240, 245, 284, 350, 351–353, 377, 391, 393, 405, 425, 466, 508, 526, 548, 569, 584, 606, 640, 662, 682, 708, 723, 751, 765 actions of to implement the Peninsula Campaign, 624–625 assassination of, 353, 746 belief in taking Vicksburg as the key to Confederate defeat in the West, 724–725 comment of on General Banks’s overconfidence, 578 decision to reinforce Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, 241–242 foreign policy of, 352 limited involvement of in Civil War naval decisions, 352–353, 461–462 political career of, 351–352 proclamation of a blockade of the Confederacy, 66–67 response of to privateers, 546 Lincoln, Mary Todd, 56, 606, 746 Linden, 291 Lioness, 91, 92, 389 (image), 559, 561 Lisovskii, Nikolai Mikhailovich, 605 Little Rebel, 390, 402, 519 Livingston, John William, 354 Lockwood, Henry Hayes, 99, 355–356, 466 Logan, 330 Lord, George, 162 Loring, William W., 768 Loudon, Robert, 119 Louisiana, 190, 219, 315, 356–357, 397, 409, 410, 453, 479, 758 armament of, 356 specifications of, 356

I-14 |â•‡ Index Louisville, 94, 170, 203, 215, 265, 357–358, 388, 437 (image), 574, 577, 656, 722 specifications of, 357 Lovell, Mansfield, 218, 219, 397, 477, 748 Lowe, Thaddeus S. C., 47 Loyall, Benjamin Pollard, 358–359, 468, 717 Lucy Gwin, 251 Luraghi, Raimondo, 487 Lynch, Montgomery, 233 Lynch, William Francis, 174, 359–361, 439, 599–600, 627, 639 Lynn Boyd, 513 Lyoness, 767 Macdonough, Thomas, 344 Macedonian, 57, 690 Mackall, William W., 327 Mackie, John B., 160, 250 Mackinaw, 166 Macon, 614 Madison, James, 3 Maffitt, John N., 127, 190–191, 363–364, 458, 544, 566, 687 Magruder, George A., 288, 751 Magruder, John B., 251–252, 254, 609 Mahan, Alfred Thayer, 270, 364–366 influential publications of, 365 Mahopac, 207, 745 (image) Maine, 153 Malek Adbel, 306 Mallory, Stephen R., xxvi, 53, 54, 79, 87, 89, 113, 151, 198, 257, 301, 309, 366–368, 394, 410, 457, 488, 528, 622, 683, 688, 689, 739, 748 breaking the North’s blockade as his primary goal, 668–669 critics of, 453 goals of for the Confederate navy, 458–459 lack of confidence in privateers, 546 legal career of, 366 problems faced by as secretary of the navy, 668 relationship with Jefferson Davis, 367 support of the Confederate ironclad program, 314–315, 317, 460 support of commerce raiding, 125–126, 367 support of the Submarine Battery Service, 678 See also Confederacy, naval strategy of; Naval Academy, Confederate

Malvern, 200 Manassas, xxviii, 219, 222, 223–224, 225, 271, 293, 301, 368–369, 409, 524, 548 specifications of, 368 Manhattan, 417, 419, 420, 424, 692 (image), 693 Manitou, 619 Marblehead, 745 (image) Marchand, John B., 424 Mare Island Navy Yard, 369–370 Margaret, 301 Maria J. Carlton, 219 Marianna Flora, 63 Marine Corps, CSA, 370–372, 458 company and corps strength of, 370 organization of, 370 problems of, 371 Marine Corps, U.S., 372–374 leadership problems of, 372–373 role of in the capture of New Orleans, 373–374 Marion, 286 Marmora, 91, 767 Marston, John, 374–376 Mary Pierce, 301 Mary T., 286 Mason, J. C., 681 Mason, James Murray, 244, 376–378, 640, 683, 707–708, 757 legal career of, 376 mission of to London, 377–378 as a senator, 376–377 Mason, John Y., 636 Massachusetts, 633 Massassoit, 709, 711 Mattabesett, 21, 22 Maurepas, 754 Maury, Dabney H., 412 Maury, John S., 638 Maury, Matthew Fontaine, 160, 378–380, 379 (image), 564–565, 678, 702 effect of his leg injury on his naval career, 378 pioneering research of in oceanography, 378–379 Maury, William Lewis, 256, 257 Maxwell, John S., 118 McCauley, Charles Stewart, 380–381, 482, 504

McClellan, George, xxvii, xxviii, 29, 47, 216, 228, 404–405, 409, 480, 483, 539, 595 See also Peninsula Campaign McClernand, John A., 59, 202, 212, 214–215, 728 vain personality of, 215, 216 McClintock, James R., 296, 679 McCown, John P., 325, 326, 327 McIntosh, C. F., 357 McKean, William Wister, 172, 271, 293, 381–382, 393 McRae, 218–219, 221–222, 224, 293, 409 McRae, Colin, 620 Medal of Honor, 382–383 design of, 382 naval winners of, 383 Medicine, naval, 383–388, 384 (image) amputations, 385 contributing factors to infection, 385 hospital ships, 385–386 lower rates of infection among Confederate wounded, 385 number of operations performed under anesthesia, 384 role of blockade-runners in supplying medicinal drugs, 387 surgical sanitation, 384–385 use of and procurement of drugs for naval surgeons, 383–384 use of ships for the transport of the wounded, 385 women serving as naval nurses, 386–387 Meigs, Montgomery, 61, 241, 391 Memphis, 102, 103 Memphis, First Battle of, 148, 177–178, 388–391, 389 (image), 402, 405, 594–595 Memphis, Tennessee, xxvii Mercedita, 102, 303, 646 Mercer, Samuel, 391–392 Mercury, 537 Merrick and Sons, 313, 319, 472 Merrimack, xxvi, 76, 85, 181, 198, 277, 311, 312, 314, 323, 333, 349, 460, 483, 504, 508, 528, 626, 643, 670, 673 reconstruction of, 734–735 scuttling of, 380–381, 482 See also Virginia Merrimack No. 2, 586

Indexâ•‡ | I-15 Merritt, A. Thomas, 93 Mervine, William, 270, 271, 392–393 Metacomet, 417, 419, 422, 423 Mexican-American War (1846–1848), 23, 25, 398 Miami, 21, 709 Miantonomoh, 246 Michigan, 286, 311, 342, 359, 393–395, 759 armament of, 394 specifications of, 393 Milledgeville, 316, 528, 614 Milliken’s Bend, Battle of, 351 Milwaukee, 170, 322 Mines, 160, 296 Mingo, 389 (image), 559, 561 Minnesota, 23, 136, 267, 277, 281, 289, 290, 341, 375, 395–396, 631, 719 armament of, 395 attack on by the Squib, 147, 650–651 specifications of, 395 Minor, Robert D., 359 Mississippi, CSS, 396–397, 453 Mississippi, USS, 54, 68, 153, 217, 220, 222, 225, 311, 315, 336, 341, 357, 397–398, 477, 479, 531, 532, 643, 654, 729 armament of, 398 specifications of, 397–398 Mississippi Central Railroad, 114, 727 Mississippi Flotilla, 388, 526 Mississippi Marine Brigade (MMB), 175, 398–400, 560, 573, 595 Mississippi River, xxv, xxvii, 26, 28–29, 32–33, 56, 95, 169, 272, 325, 399, 400–401 See also Mississippi Flotilla; Mississippi River Defense Fleet (Confederate River Defense Fleet); Mississippi Squadron; Vicksburg Campaign Mississippi River Defense Fleet (Confederate River Defense Fleet), 130, 218, 401–402, 560, 594 defeat of at Memphis, 725 Mississippi Sound, 403 Mississippi Squadron, xxviii, 96, 128, 346, 349, 350, 386, 399, 404–406, 417, 441, 512, 593, 595, 619, 652, 656, 658, 673, 698, 714–715 passage of Vicksburg, Mississippi by, 721–723

I-16 |â•‡ Index Missouri, 98, 317, 406–407, 528, 569, 6545 armament of, 406 specifications of, 406 Missouri River, 407–408 Missroon, John Stoney, 408–409 Mist, 633 Mitchell, J. J., 356 Mitchell, John Kirkwood, 166, 209, 218, 219, 221, 330, 409–410, 453, 587, 638 actions at the Battle of Trent’s Reach, 709–711 Mobile, 732–733 Mobile, Alabama, 65, 272, 411 siege of, xxix, 411–413 Mobile Bay, 413–414 See also Mobile Bay, Battle of Mobile Bay, Battle of, 49, 86, 135, 158, 186, 374, 387, 414–415, 416 (map), 417–427, 692–693, 692 (image), 753 casualties of, 426 Confederate defenses, 415 Confederate ironclads available for defense, 415, 417 details of the naval battle, 420–425 final Union plan for attack (General Order No. 11), 418 initial Union planning for, 414–415, 417 legacy/importance of the Union victory at, 425 Union concern over Confederate torpedoes, 418–419, 422 Union warships involved in, 417 See also Fort Morgan, involvement of in the Battle of Mobile Bay Mohawk, 134 Mohican, 261, 536, 720 Monadnock, 207 Monarch, 177, 215, 389, 390, 559, 560, 561 Monitor, xxvii, 38, 85, 148, 158, 159, 181, 199, 246, 264, 278 (image), 284, 311, 313, 330, 333, 371, 375, 395, 427–430, 428 (image), 483, 502, 507, 617, 625, 643, 691, 719 armament of, 281, 427, 473 battle of with the Virginia, 281–283, 428–429, 463–464, 480, 736, 765 specifications and construction of, 319–320, 427–428

“Monitor-mania,” 320, 430 Monitor-type ships, xxvii–xxviii Milwaukee-class, 170 Passaic-class, 320, 431, 502–503 Monongahela, 417, 419, 424, 531, 729 Mont Blanc, 121 Montauk, 106, 200, 226–227, 238, 431–432, 435, 436, 502, 666, 765 armament of, 431 specifications of, 431 Montgomery, 689 Montgomery, James E., 388, 402, 519, 521 Montgomery, John Berrien, 432–433 Monticello, 136, 137, 171, 289, 301 Moodna, 338 Morgan, 186, 417, 444, 692 (image) Morgan, Daniel, 229 Morgan, John Hunt, 189 Morris, Charles M., 51, 544 Morris, Henry W., 221, 433–434 Morris Island, South Carolina, 101, 105, 108, 109 Union operations against, 434–437 Morse, Freeman H., 564 Morse, Samuel, 122–123 Mortar Boat No. 16, 437, 439, 519 Mortar boats, 437–438, 437 (image) armament of, 438 specifications of, 437–438 Mortars, 438–439 Moser, 222 Mosquito Fleet, the, 57, 264, 439–440 Mound City, 94, 170, 265, 339, 402, 437 (image), 440–441, 520, 570 (image), 574, 577, 583, 594, 656, 722 See also White River Expedition Mound City Naval Station, 441 Murray, E. C., 356 Muscle, 514, 515 Muscogee, 614 Music, 547 Nahant, 40, 106, 109, 110, 227, 238, 338, 431, 435, 502, 614, 647, 746, 747, 749 Nansemond, 89, 166, 209, 639, 710 Nantucket, 109, 110, 431, 502 Napoleon, 701 Nashville (cruiser), 106, 187, 227, 431, 443

Nashville (ironclad), xxviii, 186, 316, 415, 444–445, 528, 639 armament of, 444 specifications of, 444 Natchez, 33, 635 Naugatuck, 158, 159, 585, 625 Naval Academy, Confederate, 445–446 Naval Academy, U.S., 447–448 Naval brigade, 448–449 Naval Efficiency Board, 449–450 Naval gunnery, 451–452 Naval Investigating Board, 453–454 Naval ordnance, 454–457, 455 (image) difference between Confederate and Union guns, 456–457 rifled guns, 456 shell guns, 454, 455–456 shot guns, 454–455 See also Brooke guns; Dahlgren boat howitzers; Dahlgren naval guns; Parrot guns Navy, Confederate States of America (CSA), 457–461 bonuses paid for enlistment in, 618 budget for as percentage of total Confederate budget, 458, 668 lack of ships and facilities at the beginning of the Civil War, 457–458 numerical strength of, 458, 487 order of ranks in, 561–563 recruitment of seamen for, 617–619 See also Commerce raiding; Ironclads; Officers and seamen (Union and Confederate); Shipboard life; Submarines; Timberclads Navy, U.S., 461–465, 751–752 bonuses paid for enlistment in, 618 budget for as percentage of total U.S. budget, 458, 668 growth of ships and personnel in, 462 leadership of, 461–462 logistical achievements of, 464–465 naval support of army operations, 463 number of steam warships in, 655 numerical strength of, 462, 487 order of ranks in, 561–563 recruitment of seamen for, 617–619 strategic mission of, 462 technological innovations of, 462

Indexâ•‡ | I-17 See also African American sailors; Confederacy, blockade of; Officers and seamen (Union and Confederate); Shipboard life; Submarines; Tinclads Neilson, James, 310 Nelson, William, 465–466 Neosho, 170, 467, 573, 570 (image), 575 (image), 577, 578, 582, 583 Neptune, 131, 251, 303 Neuse, 16, 317, 359, 468–469, 528, 545, 626 Neuse River, 27, 299, 359, 468, 469–470, 471, 717 New Bern, North Carolina, capture of, 469–471 New Bern, North Carolina, raid on, 27, 471–472 New Era. See Essex New Hampshire, 567 New Ironsides, 101, 103, 106, 107, 109, 110, 146, 165, 207, 238, 246, 259, 311, 313, 319, 472–474, 473 (image), 557, 604, 643, 646, 647, 649, 673, 711, 714 armament of, 473 attack on by the David, 474–475 specifications of, 472 New Madrid, Missouri, xxvii New Orleans, 610 New Orleans, Louisiana, xxvii, 34, 56, 65, 69, 72, 81, 124, 190, 271, 272, 367, 397, 410, 438, 476–477, 576, 607, 633, 680, 749 privateers operating from, 81, 547–548 See also New Orleans, Louisiana, capture of New Orleans, Louisiana, capture of, 23, 58, 133, 411, 437, 477, 478 (map), 479, 530, 588, 652, 725, 753, 758 See also Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s run past Newport News, Virginia, 480–481 Niagara, 67–68, 133, 257, 381 Nicholson, William Carmichael, 481 Nightingale, 293, 523 Niles, John M., 750 Norfolk Navy Yard, 151, 277, 288, 290, 305, 314, 323, 375, 459, 460, 481–484, 483 (image), 528, 585, 589, 691 destruction of, 373, 380–381, 482, 483 (image), 602, 757 North, James H., 87, 125, 317

I-18 |â•‡ Index North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, 26, 40, 41, 67, 76, 137, 153, 155, 250, 264, 274, 346, 395, 408, 484–486, 516, 526, 528, 539, 551, 557–558, 597, 598, 615, 650, 677, 688, 692, 697, 709, 714, 746 North Carolina, 54, 163, 259, 305, 316, 341, 567, 587 North River, 637 Northampton, 330 Ocean Eagle, 547 Octorara, 120, 417, 419, 680, 723 Oeonee, 614 Officers and seamen (Union and Confederate), 487–489 deaths of from disease, 488 motivations of for joining the navy, 488 social class differences between sailors and army personnel, 487–488 See also African American sailors Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies (Office of Naval War Records), 489–490 Ohio, 99, 133, 567, 676 Ohio River, 490–491 Olinde, 664 Olmstead, Frederick Law, 387 Olustee, 113, 688–689 Omaha, 620 Oneida, 217, 220, 222, 346, 417, 419, 723 Onondaga, 587, 709, 711 Oreto, 363 Osage, 322, 467–468, 573, 574, 577, 578, 580, 583 Osbon, Bradley, 223 Ossippi, 417, 419, 425 Otero. See Florida Ottawa, 505, 536, 537 Ouachita, 573 Overland Campaign, 418 Owasco, 250, 251, 252–253, 255, 723 Owl, 364 Ozark, 170, 322, 573, 577 Page, Richard Lucian, 230, 415, 425, 493–494 Page, Thomas J., 664 Palmer, Innis N., 471 Palmer, James Shedden, 494–496, 753

Palmetto State, 102, 106, 259, 303, 309, 316, 498, 528, 587, 646, 665, 712, 713 Para, 666 Parke, John, 470 Parker, Foxhall Alexander, Jr., 496–497 Parker, William A., actions at the Battle of Trent’s Reach, 709–711 Parker, William Harwar, 446, 497–498 Parrot, Robert Parker, 456, 499–500, 499 (image) Parrot guns, 500–502, 501 (image) Passaic, 106, 110, 158, 227, 237, 238, 431, 436, 502 Patapsco, 106, 110, 227, 238, 431, 502, 503, 703 Patrick Henry, 147, 159, 277, 330, 331, 359, 446, 498, 590, 615, 626, 712 Paulding, Hiram, 312, 482, 503–505, 504 (image), 642 Pawnee, 139 (image), 158, 242, 245, 289, 382, 501 (image), 504, 505–506, 536, 539, 603, 666, 744 armament of, 505 specifications of, 505 Pawtuxet, 200 Peace, Joachim, 6 Peacemaker, explosion of, 506–507 Peacock, 198 Pearson, George Frederick, 507–508 Pegram, Robert, 443 Pemberton, John C., 114–115, 291, 732 defense of Vicksburg by, 727 surrender of Vicksburg to Grant, 733 Pembina, 505, 536 Penguin, 354, 536 Peninsula Campaign, xxvii, 27, 47, 228, 264, 277, 283, 387, 409, 429, 463, 480, 483, 539, 595, 624, 674, 677, 702 Pennock, Alexander M., 441 Pendergast, Austin, 645 Pendergast, Garrett Jesse, 508–509 Pennsylvania, 305, 482, 712, 739 Pensacola, 153, 217, 220, 221, 434, 457, 544 Pensacola, Florida, 272 Pensacola Navy Yard, 231, 240, 270, 271, 373, 509–510 Pequot, 200 Perkins, George H., 221, 477

Permanent Commission, 510 Perry, 195, 547 Perry, Matthew C., 336, 397, 450, 544, 684 Peterhoff crisis, 510–511 Petersburg Campaign, 480 Petrel, 178, 179, 291, 292, 550, 767 Phelps, John W., 633 Phelps, Seth Ledyard, 196, 512–513, 573, 580, 593 Phelp’s Raid, 513–515 Phenix, 546–547 Philadelphia, 142 (image), 598, 604, 661 Philadelphia Naval Asylum, 515–516 Philadelphia Naval Yard, 516–517 Philippi, 423 Phillips, Lodner D., 679 Philo Parsons, 394 Phoebe, 183 Pickering, Charles W., 297, 304 Pickett, George E., 166, 471, 472 Pierce, Franklin, 450, 751 Pillow, Gideon J., 59–60, 202, 203–204 Pinola, 217, 219, 220, 224, 723 Pioneer, 296, 548, 679 Pioneer II, 679 Pitt, William, 701 Pittsburg, 91, 94, 170, 203, 265, 327, 437 (image), 517, 520, 573, 577, 583, 656, 722 Pittsburg Landing, 517–519 Planter, 6, 641–642 Plum Point Bend, Battle of, xxviii, 148, 233– 234, 388, 405, 437, 519–521, 560, 561 casualties of, 521 sinking of the Cincinnati during, 520 Plymouth, Battle of. See Albemarle Sound, Battle of Pocahontas, 537, 599 Poinsett, 360 Poland, 605–606 Polk, James K., 366, 447, 640, 704, 751 Polk, Leonidas, 26, 50, 59, 60, 211, 233, 325 Pontchartrain, 754 Pook, Samuel R., 51, 93, 170, 312, 319, 321, 349, 358 “Pook Turtles,” 92 (image), 94, 321–322, 358 construction specifications and armament of, 94 Poor, Charles Henry, 522–523

Indexâ•‡ | I-19 Pope, John, Jr., 96, 196, 233, 325, 523–524, 594 “Pope’s Run,” 271, 294, 301, 524 See also Head of Passes, Battle of Popov, Alexandrovich, 605 Porpoise, 133, 163, 263 Port Gibson, 732 Port Hudson, Louisiana, action at, 530–532, 656, 729 Port Hudson, Louisiana, siege of, 532–534 casualties of, 533 Port Royal, 158, 159, 417, 419 Port Royal, South Carolina, xxvi, 24, 26, 104, 164, 373, 646, 664, 691 Port Royal Sound, Battle of, 343, 534–538, 535 (map) Porter, David Dixon, xxviii, xxx, 19, 26, 44, 62, 64, 78, 95, 114, 115, 129, 137, 162, 176, 200, 201, 212, 241, 285, 291, 346, 353, 356, 386, 391, 405, 447, 463, 486, 524–527, 525 (image), 543, 554, 560, 595, 732, 760, 767 capture of Fort DeRussy by, 732 early naval career of, 525–526 involvement in Farragut’s run past Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, 216, 220, 221, 224, 437, 479 involvement in Farragut’s run past Vicksburg, 723–724 as naval commander of the Red River Expedition, 526, 571, 573, 578, 579–581 passage of Vicksburg with the Mississippi Squadron, 721–722, 725, 728 respect of for Gustavus Fox, 246 seizure of cotton by during the Red River Campaign, 575–576 service in the Mexican-American War, 525 See also Fort Fisher Campaign; Fort Hindman, Battle of; Grand Gulf, Battle of; Mississippi Marine Brigade; Mississippi River Squadron; Steele’s Bayou Expedition Porter, John L., 16, 527–529, 586, 734 Porter, Thomas K., 121 Porter, William D., 31, 33, 529–530, 531 (image) Portsmouth, 147, 195, 432 Portsmouth Navy Yard, 538 Potomac, 497, 541, 542

I-20 |â•‡ Index Potomac Flotilla, 67, 539–540, 541, 603, 744, 746 Potomac River, 539, 540–541 Potter, Edward E., 448 Powell, Levin Minn, 541–542 Powhatan, 44, 231, 241, 242, 261, 331, 391, 525, 542–543, 566, 604, 615, 683 armament of, 542 specifications of, 542 Preble, 293, 523 Preble, George Henry, 543–545 President, 56, 300, 676 Price, Joseph, 299, 359, 468, 545–546 Price, Sterling, 119, 584 Prince Albert, 597 Prince Albert (consort to Queen Victoria), 377, 640, 708 Princess Royal, 303 Princeton, 180, 311, 313, 497, 506, 617, 654 Privateers, xxvi, 81, 125, 131, 152, 178, 179, 270, 289, 291, 349, 350, 459, 463, 508, 546–548, 585, 622, 661, 669, 679 See also Letters of marque and reprisal “Prize Cases,” 548–549 Protector, 549 Puritan, 154, 320, 549–550 armament of, 549 specifications of, 549 Purviance, Hugh Young, 550–551 Putnam, 131 Pyroscaphe, 653 Quaker City, 102, 103, 689 Quartermaster transports, 553 Queen of the West, 31, 33, 177, 389–390, 554, 559, 561, 729, 747 See also Queen of the West versus the Indianola Queen of the West versus the Indianola, 554–556 Quinby, 768 Racer, 666 Rachel Seaman, 607 Radford, William, 485, 557–558, 647 Rains, Gabriel J., 677 Raleigh, 174, 277, 279, 316, 439, 528, 558–559, 587, 759

Ram Fleet, U.S., 175, 234, 388, 389 (image), 398, 399, 441, 521, 559–561, 560 (image), 594, 595, 723, 594 Randolph, Victor M., 336 Rappahannock, 13, 87, 126, 187, 257, 335, 563–565, 639, 742, 762 armament of, 564 specifications of, 564 Rappahannock River, 299, 539, 540, 541 Raritan, 268, 269, 497, 762 Rattler, 98, 215, 268, 407, 617, 728, 767 Rattlesnake, 443, 765 Rawlins, John, 709 R. B. Forbes, 537 Read, Charles William, 565–567, 687, 708–709, 748 Receiving ships, 567–568 Red River, 568–569 Red River Campaign, 26, 97, 182, 197, 351, 353, 358, 407, 460, 463, 467, 512, 526, 566, 569–585, 570 (image), 572 (map), 575 (image), 672 Battle of Pleasant Hill, 579, 580 Battle of Jenkins’ Ferry, 584 Battle of Sabine Crossroads (Battle of Â�Mansfield), 579, 584 Camden Expedition of, 584 casualties of, 584 Confederate actions to impede Union naval movements, 577 damming of the Red River by Union engineers, 582–583 groundings and final destruction of the Eastport during, 576–577, 580–581 initial strategy of Union move against Shreveport, Louisiana, 569–570 numerical strength and organization of Union forces, 571 Union actions above Alexandria, 577, 578–580 Union attack on Fort DeRussy, 574 Union fleet assembled for, 573 Union navy’s role in, 570–571 Union seizure of cotton by David D. Porter, 575–576 Union ships lost during, 583–584 Red Rover, 386–387, 441 Reed, John Brahan, 500

Reliance, 299, 764 Renshaw, William B., 250–253, 255 Republic, 732–733 Resaca, 745 (image) Resolute, 218, 402, 505, 539, 614, 747 Revenue Cutter Service, U.S., 585–586 Reynolds, John G., 372 Rhind, Alexander C., 109, 110, 338 Rhode Island, 429 Richmond, CSS, 23, 57, 135, 147, 166, 209, 217, 220, 271, 293–294, 299, 309, 330, 410, 417, 419, 420, 498, 523, 524, 528, 531, 586–588, 638, 709, 710, 729, 748, 749 armament of, 587 specifications of, 587 See also Drewry’s Bluff, First Battle of Richmond, U.S., 588–589, 723 Richmond, Virginia, xxvii, 29, 259, 316, 418, 589–591, 620 evacuation of, 30 as the leading manufacturing center of the South, 590 transformation of during the Civil War, 590 Ringgold, Cadwalader, 591–592 Rio Grande River, xxv River Queen, 229, 284 Riverine warfare, 592–596 Battle of Memphis, 594–595 Union attack on Fort Henry, 593–594 Roanoke, 67 (image), 277, 321, 349, 375, 522, 557, 596–598, 604 armament of, 596, 597 specifications of, 596, 597 Roanoke Island, Battle of, 20, 360, 439, 484, 598–601 Union attacks on Fort Huger and Fort Forrest, 599–600 Roanoke River, xxix, 16, 21, 22 Robert E. Lee, 758, 759. See also Fort Donelson Roberts, Marshall O., 652 Rochambeau, 162 Rodgers, C. R. P., 537 Rodgers, John, 24, 40, 95, 185, 196, 250, 350, 535, 537, 593, 601–603, 714, 746, 747, 749 acquisition of “timberclads” by, 697–698 actions of in attacking Charleston, 107, 108–109

Indexâ•‡ | I-21 actions of in the First Battle of Drewry’s Bluff, 158–160 and the establishment of the Mississippi River Squadron, 404–405 Roe, F. A., 21 Romeo, 291, 767 Roosevelt, Theodore, 365 Rootes, Thomas R., 209, 638 Rosecrans, William, 99 Ross, Leonard F., 767, 768 Rowan, Stephen Clegg, 174, 175, 475, 603–605, 604 (image), 714 as commander of the Pawnee, 603 Russell, John, 3 Russian Baltic Fleet, 605–606 Rutledge, John, 102 S. Bayard, 767 Sabine, 4, 591 Sabine Pass, First Battle of, 607–608 Sabine Pass, Second Battle of, 608–610 Sachem, 609, 610 Sackets Harbor Naval Station, 610 Sacramento, 45, 121, 133, 664, 742 Saginaw, 369, 615, 739 Saint Philip, 652 Sally Wood, 514, 515 Sam Kirkman, 514 Sampson, 614 Samson, 559, 561 Samuel Orr, 513 San Francisco, 740 San Jacinto, 36, 58, 377, 640, 690, 707, 708, 757 San Juan, 652 Sands, Benjamin Franklin, 611–612 Sands, Joshua, 198 Sangamon, 502 Santa Rosa Island, Battle of, 231–232 Santee, 171, 286 Saranac, 342, 522, 690 Saratoga, 260, 344 Sassacus, 17, 21 Satellite, 674 Saugus, 166, 207, 711, 745 (image) Savannah, 306, 316, 363, 392, 408, 528, 587, 614, 653, 691 crew of branded as “pirates,” 547

I-22 |â•‡ Index Savannah, Georgia, 39, 65, 68, 72, 101, 104, 188, 258, 315, 332, 460, 553, 612, 613, 614, 646, 662, 665, 746, 749 Savannah II, 614 Savannah River, 132, 316, 493, 612–613 Savannah River Squadron, 613–614 Schimmelfenning, Alexander, 666 Schneck, James Findlay, 551, 614–615 Schofield, John McAllister, 200, 760–761 Sciota, 217, 220, 224, 723 Scofield and Markham Gate City Iron Works, 616 Scorpion, 318, 330, 341, 650, 710 Scotland, 72 Scott, Winfield, 5, 25, 95, 240, 241, 352, 592, 652, 672 See also Anaconda strategy (“Anaconda Plan” or “Scott’s Anaconda”) Scourge, 719 Screw propellers, 616–617 Sea Bird, 174, 439 Sea King, 628, 740 Seaver, James T., 423 Sebago, 645 Selfridge, Thomas, O., 24, 91–92, 268, 467, 574, 580, 619–620 Selma, 417, 639 Selma Naval Gun Foundry (Selma Foundry Works), 315, 620–621, 670 Seminole, 99, 417, 419, 536, 625, 645 Semmes, Raphael, xxix, 7, 8, 10, 11–12, 14, 18, 85, 89, 126, 185, 259, 335, 356, 410, 458, 459, 522, 563, 621–624, 622 (image), 683, 762 early career of, 621 service in the Mexican-American War, 621–622 success of as a commerce raider, 622–623, 684 Seneca, 226, 431, 505, 536 Seven Days’ Campaign, 47 Seven Pines, Battle of, 187 Seward, William H., 66, 241, 284, 377, 391, 525, 640 duplicitous actions of, 242 Sewell’s Point, Virginia, U.S. Navy shelling of, 624–625 Shark, 336

Sharp, William, 625–626 Shaw, Robert Gould, 435 Shelby Iron Company, 626–627 Shenandoah, xxvi, xxx, 87, 126, 127, 263, 369, 459, 460, 628–630, 629 (image), 669, 739–741 armament of, 628 capture of Union ships by, 740 specifications of, 628 Shepperd, Francis E., 710 Sherman, William Tecumseh, xxx, 26, 44, 101, 114, 115, 199, 238, 292, 405, 414–415, 448, 526, 571, 595, 613, 614, 647, 691, 721, 761 actions of during the Steele’s Bayou Expedition, 656–657 See also Vicksburg Campaign Shiloh, Battle of, 55, 204, 274, 327, 350, 386, 405, 466, 594, 634, 715 casualties of, 518 Ship Island, Mississippi, 65, 219, 271, 393, 542, 632–634, 723, 725 Shipboard life, 630–632 alcohol on board, 631–632 food on board, 631 problem of theft on board, 632 problem of vermin on board, 631 routine activities aboard ship, 630 training and practice with weapons and naval guns, 630 See also Food/drink/rations, aboard ship Shirk, James W., 514, 634–635 Shokokon, 136, 651 Shubrick, William Bradford, 344, 450, 635–637 Side-wheelers, 637–638 Signal, 162–163, 291, 573, 583, 767 Signal Hill Fire Support Mission, 638 Simms, Charles Carroll, 174, 444, 638–639 Sinclair, Arthur, 396–397 Sinope, Battle of, 38 S. J. Waring, 132 Slemmer, Adam, 231 Slidell, John, 3, 244, 565, 639–641, 707–708, 757 role of in the Trent affair, 639, 640 Sloat, John D., 344, 432, 635 Smalls, Robert, 6, 641–642, 641 (image) Smith, Albert N., 224

Smith, Andrew Jackson, 571, 583 Smith, Caleb, 241 Smith, Charles F., 204, 211, 212 Smith, E. Kirby, 466, 569, 573, 577, 584 Smith, Francis Pettit, 616, 654 Smith, Joseph, 161, 312, 549, 642–643 Smith, Joseph Bryant, 279, 643–644, 645 Smith, Leon, 251 Smith, Martin L., 724 Smith, Melancton, 21, 22, 531 Smith, Sidney, 185 Smith, Walter W., 178 Smith, Watson, 767, 768 Smith, William, 644–645 Somers, 309, 622, 739 South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, xxix, 40, 67, 140, 143, 226, 237, 305, 338, 431, 435, 473, 503, 537, 551, 646–648, 650, 677, 712 amphibious operations of, 646 area of coverage by, 646 South Carolina, 23 Southfield, 17, 19, 21 Southampton, 433 Spanish Fort, 444, 445 Spar torpedoes, 17–18, 19, 200, 648–649 Spark, 676 Spence, Edward Lee, 298 Sphinx, 88, 318, 663 Spitfire, 690 Sprowle, Andrew, 482 Spuyten Duyvil, 711 Squadrons, 650 Squib, 147, 200, 395–396, 650–651 specifications of, 650 torpedo armament of, 650 Squibb, E. R., 383–384 St. Clair, 573 St. Lawrence, 259, 277, 286, 550, 551, 615 St. Louis, 170, 203, 211, 212, 309, 380, 388, 437 (image), 456, 522, 755 See also Baron de Kalb St. Mary’s, 45, 529, 626 St. Nicholas, 300 St. Patrick, 680 St. Philip, 768 Staerkodder, 663 Stanton, Edwin M., 177, 388, 399, 559 Star of the West, 652, 743

Indexâ•‡ | I-23 State of Georgia, 36, 544 Steam Picket Boat No. 1, 18, 19, 137 Steam propulsion, 653–655 and compound engines, 653 improvements to, 653–654 Steamships, 64–65 number of steam warships in the U.S. Navy, 655 Steele, Frederick, 571, 584 Steele’s Bayou Expedition, 655–658, 730–731 Steiner, J. H., 47 Stellwagen, Henry S., 102 Stembel, Rodger Nelson, 519, 658–659 Stephens, Alexander H., 284 Stephenson, John A., 218, 219, 368 Stepping Stone, 651 Stern-wheelers, 659 Stevens, Henry K., 32, 56 Stevens Battery, 312, 660 cost of, 660 specifications of, 660 Stewart, Charles, 636, 660–662, 661 (image) Stockton, Robert F., 180, 506, 507, 616, 635 Stone Fleets, 646, 662–663 Stono River Expedition, 665–667 Stonewall, 54, 88, 133, 147, 218, 261, 318, 402, 663–665, 664 (image), 745 (image) ramming of the Varuna, 225 Strategy, naval. See Confederacy, naval strategy of; United States, naval strategy of Stribling, Cornelius Kincheloe, 172, 675–676, 697 Stringham, Silas H., xxv–xxvi, 25, 41, 53–54, 289, 346, 392, 603, 676–677 Stromboli, 712, 742 Strong, James H., 424 Sub Marine Explorer, 680 Submarine Battery Service, 677–679 Submarine No. 7, 61 conversion of to the Benton, 170 Submarines, xxix, 169, 192, 270, 304, 476, 569, 573, 670, 679–681 See also H. L. Hunley; Pioneer; Submarine Battery Service; Submarine No. 7 Sullivan, James, 474 Sultana, 119, 681–682, 682 (image) Sumner, Charles, 10

I-24 |â•‡ Index Sumter, 24, 34, 36, 134, 371, 389, 459, 460, 495, 522, 523, 543, 588, 683–684, 707 armament of, 683 as a commerce raider, 622–623 specifications of, 683 Sumter, Thomas, 234 Supply, 525, 741 Surdam, David G., 70 Susquehanna, 23, 261, 274, 289, 290, 300, 336, 343, 535, 536, 684–685 armament of, 684 specifications of, 684 “Swamp Angel,” the, 436 Switzerland, 559, 561 Symonds, T. E., 687 Tacony, 566, 592, 687 Tallahassee, 112, 113, 126, 261, 687–689, 759 armament of, 688 specifications of, 688 Tallahatchee, 573 Talomico, 614 Tappan, James C., 59 Tattnall, Josiah, 331, 458, 534, 536, 537, 542, 690–691, 736 Taylor, Richard, 573, 574, 575, 579 Taylor, Zachary, 268–269, 751 T. D. Horner, 559, 561 Teaser, 48, 147, 277, 330, 749 Tecumseh, 23, 132, 134, 135, 417, 419, 420, 691–693, 692 (image), 703 armament of, 692 operations of in the Battle of Mobile Bay, 692–693 specifications of, 691–692 See also Mobile Bay, Battle of Tender vessels, 693–694 Tennessee, xxvii Tennessee, xxviii, xxix, 85–86, 87, 135, 184, 185, 287, 315, 316, 332, 390, 415, 417, 420, 423–425, 528, 621, 692 (image), 693, 694–695, 694 (image) armament of, 694 specifications of, 694 See also Mobile Bay, Battle of Tennessee River, xxvii, 26, 399, 512, 695–696 See also Fort Henry, Battle of

Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), 696 Terry, Alfred Howe, 27, 200, 207, 208, 526, 761 Texas, 316, 528, 591 Thatcher, Henry Knox, 186, 412, 426, 445, 495, 696–697, 753 Thayer, Sylvanus, 244 Thistle, 215 Thomas Freeborn, 505, 539, 744 Thomas L. Wragg, 443 Thompson, Jacob, 394 Tift, Asa F., 39, 188 Tift, Nelson, 39, 188 Tilghman, Lloyd, 210, 211, 212, 214 Timberclads, 26, 128, 129, 169, 203, 203 (image), 211, 212, 274, 404, 405, 512, 518, 593, 594, 602, 658, 697–698, 715 See also Belmont, Battle of Time, 514 Tinclads, 91, 189, 215, 405, 426, 578, 595, 698–699, 732 Tonnage, 699–701 Baker’s rule tonnage, 700 displacement measured in, 700 original definition of, 700 Torch, 649 Torpedo, 147, 710 Torpedoes, 107, 219, 296, 679, 701–704, 702 (image) early development of, 701–702 horological torpedoes, 118 spar torpedoes, 17–18, 19, 200, 648–649 types of, 703 use of by the Confederacy, 702 See also Coal torpedo; David Todd, A. H., 56 Tomb, James, 474 Toombs, Robert, 546 Toucey, Isaac, 5, 704–705, 743, 751, 752 Townsend, J. H., 402 Treaty of Washington (1871), 4 Tredegar Iron Works, xxv, 29, 30, 315, 458, 620, 670, 678, 680, 705–707, 706 (image), 735 slave labor at, 706, 707 types of weapons produced by, 706 Trent, 707, 708, 757

Trent Affair, the, 3, 154, 160, 244, 320, 352, 376, 377, 511, 544, 639, 640, 707–708 Trent’s Reach, Battle of, 708–712 Confederate objectives, 709 Confederate ships involved in, 709 role of Union batteries during, 710 Union ships involved in, 709 Triton, 546 Triumph, 188 Tucker, John Randolph, 89, 102, 159, 330, 691, 712–713 Turner, Thomas, 604, 713–714 Turtle, 616 Tuscaloosa, 185, 317, 415, 417 Tuscarora, 134, 293 Tuscumbia, 265, 266, 634, 722 Tybee Island, Georgia, 613, 614, 646, 663 Tyler, 31, 33, 59, 60, 128–129, 169, 203, 211, 215, 274, 292, 350, 404, 512, 513, 514, 515, 518, 593, 594, 696, 698, 714–715, 741 reinforcement of with heavy guns and oak plating, 714–715 specifications of, 715 Tyler, Henry, 372 Tyler, John, 122, 506 Unadilla, 200, 536 Uncle Ben, 610 Underwriter, 27, 299, 359, 764 Confederate expedition against, 471–472, 717–718 Union, 762 United States, 132, 543, 567, 626, 660 United States, naval strategy of, 671–675 blockade strategy of, 672, 673–674 effective navy-army cooperation, 674 increased growth in both ships and naval personnel, 671–672 Lincoln’s limited role in, 672 priority of in securing ships, 672–673 See also Anaconda strategy (“Anaconda Plan” or “Scott’s Anaconda”) Upper Mississippi Flotilla, 32 Upshurm Abel, 506 Valley City, 174–175

Indexâ•‡ | I-25 Van Brunt, Gershom Jaques, 719–720 Van Buren, Martin, 750 Vance, Zebulon, 113, 688 Vandalia, 67 (image), 345, 346, 374, 534, 536 Vanderbilt, 510, 535, 720–721 armament of, 720 specifications of, 720 Varuna, 217, 220, 222, 224 ramming of by the Stonewall Jackson, 225 Vermont, 567, 591–592 Verne, Jules, 680 Vesuvius, 741 V. H. Ivy, 547 Vicksburg, Mississippi, xxvii, xxviii, 26, 32–33, 265 Mississippi Squadron passage of, 721–723 West Gulf Squadron passage of, 723–724 See also Chickasaw Bluffs, Battle of; Vicksburg Campaign Vicksburg Campaign, 703, 724–734, 726 (map) Bedford’s attacks on Union supply lines, 727 capture and destruction of the Indianola by the Confederates, 729 casualties of, 733 Confederate capture of Grant’s supply base at Holly Springs, 728 Grant’s crossing the Mississippi River at Bruinsburg, 731–732 Grant’s march down the Louisiana side of the Mississippi River, 731 Grant’s siege of Vicksburg, 732, 733 Halleck’s refusal to support Farragut in his run past Vicksburg, 724, 726 Steele’s Bayou Expedition to secure the Yazoo River entrance, 655–658, 730–731 Union attack on Port Hudson, 729–730 West Gulf Squadron passage of Vicksburg by Farragut, 723–724, 725–727 Yazoo Pass Expedition attempt to take Vicksburg from the east, 52, 730 See also Chickasaw Bluffs, Battle of; Hayne’s Bluff, Mississippi, Union demonstration at Victor, 563, 564 Villepigue, John B., 233 Vincennes, 45, 133, 293, 294, 523, 524, 756 Vindicator, 561, 619

I-26 |â•‡ Index Virginia, xxvi, xxvii, xxviii, 24, 38, 76, 79, 85, 89, 147, 161, 174, 185, 198–199, 246, 264, 278 (image), 284, 311, 314, 316, 333, 349, 367, 371, 381, 395, 453, 460, 483, 507, 522, 604, 619, 625, 639, 669, 670, 673, 691, 706, 712, 734–737, 735 (image) armament of, 277, 735 battle with the Monitor, 281–283, 428–429, 463–464, 480, 736, 765 construction of, 314–315, 734–735 problems with, 315 sinking of the Congress by, 643–644 sinking of the Cumberland by, 177, 375, 557, 559 See also Hampton Roads, Battle of; Merrimack Virginia II, 166, 209, 316, 330, 410, 586–587, 638, 709, 710, 711 Virginius, 137 Vixen, 744 Wabash, 23, 53, 289, 290, 391–392, 534, 535, 536–537 Wachusett, 121, 191, 408, 511, 645 Waddell, James I., 127, 458, 459, 498, 628, 739–741 Walke, Henry, 96, 327, 732, 741–742 Walker, 23 Walker, John, 574, 575 Walker, Leroy Pope, 243 Walker, William Sparhawk, 742–743 Wamsutta, 666 Ward, 370 Ward, James Harmon, 192, 603, 743–745 Ward, William H., 113, 688 Ware, Horace, 626–627 Warley, Alexander, 222, 223, 224, 225, 293, 368, 369, 368 Warner, 162 Warren, 262, 306 Warrior, 218, 402 Washington, 497 Washington Navy Yard, 745–746, 745 (image) Wasp, 614, 635, 650, 709 Wassaw Sound, Battle of, 746–747 Water Witch, 157, 293, 523, 545, 614, 636 Watmough, Pendleton, 102–103 Watson, Baxter, 296

Watson, John C., 419 Webb, 566, 589, 747–749 armament of, 748 specifications of, 748 Webb, William Augustine, 160, 749–750 Webster, Daniel, 3 Weehawken, 40, 107, 108–109, 110, 238, 431, 435, 436, 502, 503, 602, 614, 647, 746–747, 749 Welles, Gideon, xxv, xxix, 5, 18, 25, 40–41, 43, 53, 64, 65, 83, 104, 106, 121, 133, 137, 161, 187, 194, 241, 245, 271, 312, 353, 372, 391, 393, 447, 461–462, 476, 485, 510, 522, 525, 544, 549, 593, 604, 645, 646, 647, 662, 697, 723, 750–753, 751 (image), 757 condition of the U.S. Navy when he took office, 751–752 conflict with Seward, 242 criticism of, 464 decision to replace Flag Officer Du Pont with Rear Admiral Foote, 111, 196 dismissal of Charles S. McCauley, 482 dismissal of Charles Wilkes, 720 dismissal of James Waddell, 739 dislike of John A. Dahlgren, 140 establishment of the Mississippi River Squadron, 404 high opinion of Samuel F. Du Pont, 164 meeting with James Buchanan Eads, 169–170 neglect of riverine warfare by, 592 political career of, 750–751 problems faced by as secretary of the navy, 752 reliance on Gustavus Fox, 246 See also Confederacy, blockade of; Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s run past West Gulf Blockading Squadron, xxvii, 26, 32, 41, 46, 58, 67, 81, 116, 158, 172, 184, 219, 266, 271, 272, 346, 369, 382, 396, 410, 434, 476, 477, 495, 509, 544, 656, 692, 753–754 passage of Vicksburg by, 723–724 See also Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s run past West India Squadron, 508 West Point Foundry, 499

Western Gunboat Flotilla. See Mississippi Squadron Westfield, 250, 251, 252, 253, 255, 723 Whelan, William, 302 Whig Party, 3 Whisper, 759 White Oak Swamp, Battle of, 29 White River Expedition, 754–756 casualties of, 755 Whitehead, 21 Whitney, Charles W., 337, 338 Whitney, William C., 490 Wilkes, Charles, 22, 353, 707–708, 720, 756–758, 757 (image) as a global explorer, 756 Wilkinson, John, 113, 688, 689, 758–760 success of as a blockade runner, 758–759 William H. Brown, 570 (image) William H. Webb, 555 William Putnam, 709 Williams, John, 382 Williams, Thomas, 32, 55, 267, 723, 725 Wilmington, 316, 528 Wilmington, North Carolina, xxix, xxx, 26, 65, 68, 72, 73, 113, 205, 208, 460, 484, 485, 558, 611, 668, 688, 689, 747 engagements at, 760–761 See also Fort Anderson and Wilmington, North Carolina, Union operations against; Fort Fisher Campaign Wilson, James H., 621, 767 Wilson’s Creek, Battle of, 385 Winder, John H., 179 Winkler, R. T. G., 382

Indexâ•‡ | I-27 Winnebago, 170, 322, 417, 419, 420, 421, 692 (image) Winona, 217, 220, 224, 723 Winslow, 54 Winslow, John Ancrum, xxix, 13, 16, 763–763, 762 (image) Wise, Henry A., 599 Wissahickon, 217, 220, 224, 226, 227, 431, 477, 723 Withenbury, Wellington W., 576, 577, 578 Wivern, 318, 341 Wood, John Taylor, 299, 471–472, 717, 763–764 Woodford, 577 Wool, John E., 228 Worden, John Lorimer, 226, 428, 431, 764–766, 765 (image) Wyalusing, 21, 22 Wyoming, 137 Yates, Richard, 95 Yazoo City Navy Yard, 733 Yazoo Pass Expedition, 52, 730, 767–768 Yazoo River, 32, 33, 83, 291, 358, 655, 656, 727, 769 See also Chickasaw Bluffs, Battle of York, 262 York River, xxvii, 540, 645 Yorktown, 57, 374, 445–446, 497 Young America, 508 Young Virginia, 587 Zeilin, Jacob, 372, 373, 374 Zouave, 279, 599




The Civil War Naval Encyclopedia VOLUME TWO: N–Y

Dr. Spencer C. Tucker Editor

Dr. Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr. Associate Editor

William E. White III Assistant Editor

© Copyright 2011 by ABC-CLIO, LLC All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The Civil War naval encyclopedia / [edited by] Spencer C.Tucker. â•…â•…â•… p. cm. â•… Includes bibliographical references and index. â•… ISBN 978-1-59884-338-5 (hard copy : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-1-59884-339-2 (ebook) â•‡ 1. United States—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Naval operations—Encyclopedias.â•… I. Tucker, Spencer, 1937– â•… E591.C53â•… 2011 â•… 973.7003—dc22 2010036961 ISBN: 978-1-59884-338-5 EISBN: 978-1-59884-339-2 15â•‡ 14â•‡ 13â•‡ 12â•‡ 11â•…â•… 1â•‡ 2â•‡ 3â•‡ 4â•‡ 5 This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook. Visit www.abc-clio.com for details. ABC-CLIO, LLC 130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911 Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911 This book is printed on acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America

For Whit and Wiley, who at a young age have expressed interest in the sea and naval history

About the Editor

Spencer C. Tucker, PhD, graduated from the Virginia Military Institute and was a Fulbright scholar in France. He was a U.S. Army captain and intelligence analyst in the Pentagon during the Vietnam War and then taught for 30 years at Texas Christian University before returning to his alma mater for 6 years as the holder of the John Biggs Chair of Military History. He retired from teaching in 2003. He is now Senior Fellow of Military History at ABC-CLIO. Dr. Tucker has written or edited 36 books and encyclopedias, including ABC-CLIO’s award-winning The Encyclopedia of the Cold War and The Encyclopedia of the Arab-Israeli Conflict as well as the comprehensive A Global Chronology of Conflict.

Contents

VOLUME ONE List of Entries, ix List of Maps, xvii Preface, xix General Maps, xxi The Civil War at Sea: Overview, xxv Entries A–M, 1 Categorical Index, CI-1 Index, I-1 VOLUME TWO List of Entries, ix List of Maps, xvii General Maps, xviii Entries N–Y, 443 Chronology of the Naval Civil War, 1860–1865, 771 Glossary of Naval Terms, 803 Bibliography, 813 List of Editors and Contributors, 827 Categorical Index, CI-1 Index, I-1

vii


List of Entries

VOLUME ONE

Bache, Alexander Dallas

Adams, Charles Francis, Sr.

Bache, George Mifflin

Adams, Henry A.

Bailey, Theodorus

African American Sailors

Balloons

Alabama, CSS

Baltic, CSS

Alabama Claims

Bancroft, George

Alabama vs. Hatteras

Barney, Joseph Nicholson

Alabama vs. Kearsarge

Baron de Kalb, USS

Albemarle, CSS

Barron, Samuel

Albemarle, CSS, Destruction of

Baton Rouge, Battle of

Albemarle Sound

Bell, Charles Heyer

Albemarle Sound, Battle of

Bell, Henry Haywood

Alden, James, Jr. Alligator, USS

Belmont, Battle of

Amphibious Warfare

Benton, USS

Anaconda Strategy

Black Hawk, USS

Anderson, Joseph Reid

Blake, George Smith

Arkansas, CSS

Blockade Board

Arkansas, CSS, Union Attempts to Destroy

Blockade of the Confederacy

Arkansas River

Bormann Fuze

Blockade-Runners

Armstrong, James

Boston Navy Yard

Armstrong, James F.

Breese, Samuel Livingston

Artillery Projectiles, Naval

Bridge, Horatio

Atlanta, CSS

Brooke, John Mercer

Atlantic Blockading Squadron ix

x |â•‡ List of Entries

Brooke Guns

Cottonclads

Brooklyn, USS

Coxetter, Louis Mitchell

Brooklyn Navy Yard

Craven, Thomas Tingey

Brown, Isaac Newton

Craven, Tunis Augustus Macdonough

Buchanan, Franklin

Cumberland River

Bulloch, James Dunwody

Cushing, William Barker

Butt, Walter Raleigh

Dahlgren, John Adolph Bernard

Cairo, USS

Dahlgren Boat Howitzers

Cairo-class River Ironclads

Dahlgren Guns

Cairo Naval Station

Davids, CSS

Carondelet, USS

Davidson, Hunter

Carter, Jonathan H.

Davis, Charles Henry

Carter, Samuel Powhatan

Davis, Jefferson Finis

Charleston, South Carolina

Declaration of Paris

Charleston, South Carolina, CSA Navy Attack on U.S. Navy Blockaders

Dewey, George

Charleston, South Carolina, Du Pont’s Attack on

Discipline, Naval

Charlotte Navy Yard Chickamauga, CSS Chickasaw Bluffs, Battle of Cincinnati, USS City Point, Virginia Coal Torpedo Coast Survey, U.S.

Dictator, USS Dornin, Thomas Aloysius Drayton, Percival Drewry’s Bluff, First Battle of Dunderberg, USS Dunn’s Bayou, Engagement at Du Pont, Samuel Francis Dutch Gap, Battle of

Collins, Napoleon

Eads, James Buchanan

Colt, Samuel

Eagle, Henry

Colt Navy Revolver

East Gulf Blockading Squadron

Columbus Navy Yard

Eastport, USS

Commerce Raiding, Confederate

Elizabeth City, Battle of

Conestoga, USS

Ellet, Alfred Washington

Cooke, James Wallace

Ellet, Charles, Jr. Enchantress Affair

List of Entriesâ•‡ | xi

Engle, Frederick

Fort Sumter, Union Attacks on

Ericsson, John Essex, USS

Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, Relief Efforts and Beginning of the Civil War

Farragut, David Glasgow

Fort Warren, Massachusetts

Farrand, Ebenezer

Fox, Gustavus Vasa

Fauntleroy, Charles Magill Fingal, CSS Fitch, Le Roy Floating Battery Florida, CSS Flotilla Food and Drink aboard Ship Foote, Andrew Hull Forest Rose, USS Forrest, French Fort Anderson and Wilmington, North Carolina, Union Operations against

Galena, USS Galveston, Battle of Galveston, Texas Galveston, Texas, Union Capture of Georgia, CSS, Commerce Raider Georgia, CSS, Ironclad Floating Battery Glassell, William T. Glendy, William Marshall Godon, Sylvanus William Goldsborough, John Rodgers Goldsborough, Louis Malesherbes

Fort Donelson, Battle of

Grand Gulf, Battle of

Fort Fisher Campaign

Grand Gulf, Mississippi, Union Shelling of

Fort Harrison and Chaffin’s Bluff, Battle of Fort Henry, Battle of Fort Hindman, Battle of Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s Run Past Fort McAllister, Georgia, Union Attacks on

Greenville, Mississippi, Union Â�Operations in the Vicinity of Gregory, Francis Hoyt Guerre de Course Gulf Blockading Squadron Gulf of Mexico

Fort Monroe, Virginia

Gunner’s Tools

Fort Morgan, Alabama

Gwin, William

Fort Pickens, Florida

Hampton Roads, Battle of

Fort Pillow, Tennessee

Hampton Roads, Virginia

Fort Sumter, South Carolina

Harriet Lane, USS

xii |â•‡ List of Entries

Hart, John Elliott Hartford, USS Harwood, Andrew Allen Hatteras Inlet, Union Assault on Haynes’ Bluff, Mississippi, Union Demonstration at Head of Passes, Battle of Hitchcock, Robert Bradley H. L. Hunley, CSS Hoff, Henry Kuhn Hoge, Francis Lyell Hollins, George Nichols Horwitz, Phineas Jonathan Housatonic, USS Hulk Hull, Joseph Bartine Hunt, Timothy Atwater

Kilty, Augustus H. Laird Rams Lanman, Joseph Lardner, James Lawrence Lavallette, Elie Augustus Frederick Lee, Samuel Phillips Lee, Sidney Smith Lenthall, John Letters of Marque and Reprisal Lexington, USS Lincoln, Abraham Livingston, John William Lockwood, Henry Hayes Louisiana, CSS Louisville, USS Loyall, Benjamin Pollard

Ingraham, Duncan Nathaniel

Lynch, William Francis

Iron and Steel Manufacture, Impact on Ship Construction

Maffitt, John Newland

Ironclad Board, U.S. Navy Ironclads, Confederate Ironclads, Union Isherwood, Benjamin Franklin Island Number 10, Battle of

Mahan, Alfred Thayer Mallory, Stephen Russell Manassas, CSS Mare Island Navy Yard Marine Corps, CSA Marine Corps, U.S.

James River

Marston, John

James River Squadron, CSA

Mason, James Murray

Johnston, James D.

Maury, Matthew Fontaine

Jones, Catesby ap Roger

McCauley, Charles Stewart

Kearsarge, USS

McKean, William Wister

Kell, John McIntosh

Medal of Honor, U.S. Navy

Keokuk, USS

Medicine, Naval

List of Entriesâ•‡ | xiii

Memphis, First Battle of

VOLUME TWO

Mercer, Samuel

Nashville, CSS, Cruiser

Mervine, William

Nashville, CSS, Ironclad

Michigan, USS

Naval Academy, Confederate

Minnesota, USS

Naval Academy, United States

Mississippi, CSS

Naval Brigade

Mississippi, USS

Naval Efficiency Board

Mississippi Marine Brigade

Naval Gunnery

Mississippi River

Naval Investigating Board, Confederate Congress

Mississippi River Defense Fleet Mississippi Sound Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy Missouri, CSS Missouri River Missroon, John Stoney Mitchell, John Kirkwood Mobile, Alabama

Naval Ordnance Navy, CSA Navy, U.S. Nelson, William Neosho and Osage, USS Neuse, CSS New Bern, North Carolina, Capture of

Mobile, Siege of

New Bern, North Carolina, Confederate Raid on

Mobile Bay

New Ironsides, USS

Mobile Bay, Battle of Monitor, USS

New Ironsides, USS, Attack on by CSS David

Monitor Mania

New Orleans, Louisiana

Montauk, USS

New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of

Montgomery, John Berrien Morris, Henry W. Morris Island, South Carolina, Union Operations against Mortar Boats Mortars Mosquito Fleet Mound City, USS Mound City Naval Station

Newport News, Virginia Nicholson, William Carmichael Norfolk Navy Yard North Atlantic Blockading Squadron Officers and Seamen in the U.S. and Confederate Navies Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies Ohio River

xiv |â•‡ List of Entries

Page, Richard Lucian

Potomac River

Palmer, James Shedden

Powell, Levin Minn

Parker, Foxhall Alexander, Jr.

Powhatan, USS

Parker, William Harwar

Preble, George Henry

Parrott, Robert Parker

Price, Joseph

Parrott Guns

Privateers

Passaic-class Monitors

Prize Cases

Paulding, Hiram

Puritan, USS

Pawnee, USS

Purviance, Hugh Young

Peacemaker, Explosion of Pearson, George Frederick Pendergast, Garrett Jesse Pensacola Navy Yard

Quartermaster Transports Queen of the West, USS Queen of the West vs. Indianola

Permanent Commission

Radford, William

Peterhoff Crisis

Raleigh, CSS

Phelps, Seth Ledyard

Ram Fleet, U.S.

Phelps’s Raid

Ranks, Union and Confederate Navies

Philadelphia Naval Asylum

Rappahannock, CSS

Philadelphia Navy Yard

Read, Charles William

Pittsburg, USS

Receiving Ship

Pittsburg Landing

Red River

Plum Point Bend, Battle of

Red River Campaign

Poor, Charles Henry

Revenue Cutter Service, U.S.

Pope, John, Jr.

Richmond, CSS

Porter, David Dixon

Richmond, USS

Porter, John Luke

Richmond, Virginia

Porter, William David

Ringgold, Cadwalader

Port Hudson, Louisiana, Action at

Riverine Warfare

Port Hudson, Louisiana, Siege of

Roanoke, USS

Port Royal Sound, Battle of

Roanoke Island, North Carolina, Union Capture of

Portsmouth Navy Yard Potomac Flotilla

Rodgers, John Rowan, Stephen Clegg

List of Entriesâ•‡ | xv

Russian Fleet Visits to New York and San Francisco

South Atlantic Blockading Squadron

Sabine Pass, First Battle of

Squadron

Sabine Pass, Second Battle of

Squib, CSS

Sackets Harbor Naval Station

Star of the West, USS

Sands, Benjamin Franklin

Steam Propulsion

Savannah River

Steele’s Bayou Expedition

Savannah River Squadron

Stembel, Roger Nelson

Schneck, James Findlay

Stern-wheeler

Scofield and Markham Gate City Iron Works

Stevens Battery

Screw Propeller

Stone Fleets

Seamen, Recruitment of

Stonewall, CSS

Selfridge, Thomas Oliver, Jr.

Stono River Expedition

Selma Naval Gun Foundry

Strategy, Confederate Naval

Semmes, Raphael

Strategy, Union Naval

Sewell’s Point, Virginia, U.S. Navy Shelling of

Stribling, Cornelius Kincheloe

Sharp, William

Submarine Battery Service

Shelby Iron Company

Submarines

Shenandoah, CSS

Sultana Disaster

Shipboard Life

Sumter, CSS

Ship Island, Mississippi

Susquehanna, USS

Shirk, James W. Shubrick, William Branford Side-wheeler Signal Hill Fire Support Mission Simms, Charles Carroll Slidell, John Smalls, Robert Smith, Joseph Smith, Joseph Bryant Smith, William

Spar Torpedo

Stewart, Charles

Stringham, Silas Horton

Tacony, CSS Tallahassee, CSS Tattnall, Josiah Tecumseh, USS Tender Vessel Tennessee, CSS Tennessee River Thatcher, Henry Knox Timberclads

xvi |â•‡ List of Entries

Tinclads

Waddell, James Iredell

Tonnage

Walke, Henry

Torpedoes

Walker, William Sparhawk

Toucey, Isaac

Ward, James Harmon

Tredegar Iron Works

Washington Navy Yard

Trent Affair

Wassaw Sound, Battle of

Trent’s Reach, Battle of

Webb, CSS

Tucker, John Randolph

Webb, William Augustine

Turner, Thomas

Welles, Gideon

Tyler, USS

West Gulf Blockading Squadron

Underwriter, USS, Confederate Expedition against Van Brunt, Gershom Jaques

White River Expedition, U.S. Navy Wilkes, Charles Wilkinson, John

Vanderbilt, USS

Wilmington, North Carolina, Engagements at

Vicksburg, Mississippi, Mississippi Squadron Passage of

Winslow, John Ancrum

Vicksburg, Mississippi, West Gulf Squadron Passage of

Worden, John Lorimer

Wood, John Taylor

Vicksburg Campaign

Yazoo Pass Expedition

Virginia, CSS

Yazoo River

List of Maps

VOLUME ONE General Maps Civil War, 1861–1862, xxi Civil War, 1863–1865, xxii Federal Naval Blockade, 1861–1865, xxiii Entry Maps Cruise of the Alabama, 1862–1864, 9 Battle of the Alabama and Kearsarge, June 19, 1864, 15 Attack on Fort Fisher, January 12–15, 1865, 206 Battles of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, February 1862, 213 Charleston Harbor and Fort Sumter, April 1861, 239 Battle of the Monitor and Virginia, March 9, 1862, 280 Battle of Mobile Bay, August 5, 1864, 416

VOLUME TWO General Maps Civil War, 1861–1862, xviii Civil War, 1863–1865, xix Federal Naval Blockade, 1861–1865, xx Entry Maps Running the Forts Below New Orleans, April 24, 1862, 478 Attack on Port Royal, November 7, 1861, 535 Red River Campaign, March–May 1864, 572 Siege of Vicksburg, May 18–July 4, 1863, 726

xvii

xviii |â•‡ General Maps

General Mapsâ•‡ | xix

xx |â•‡ General Maps

N Nashville, CSS, Cruiser First Confederate warship to show the flag in Great Britain, which caused a controversy over the Confederacy’s international standing. A passenger liner built in 1853, this 1,221-ton side-wheel steamer was seized at Charleston, South Carolina, for the Confederate Navy and converted to be used as a cruiser. It was 215 feet, 6 inches, in length, with a beam of 34 feet, 6 inches, and depth of 21 feet. It was armed with two 12-pounders. Captained by Lieutenant Robert Pegram, the ship took only one cruise, sailing to British waters during November 1861–February 1862, where it seized two prizes. Britain’s May 1861 neutrality law stipulated that the Confederacy was not a bona fide nation, that its diplomats and officials were only citizen-belligerents at war with the United States, and that its warships could only spend three days in British ports to resupply. The Nashville caused a row by challenging British policy. The Royal Navy formally recognized Pegram as an official representative of the Confederate States of America, and granted him permission to place the Nashville in dry dock for a month. Union diplomats challenged the British actions as a tacit declaration of war against the United States, while Confederate diplomats sought to secure official recognition. After a month of debate in the press and Parliament, British prime minister Henry John Temple and Lord Palmerston backpedaled from the Royal Navy’s action, ordered the Nashville to depart, and reaffirmed British neutrality. The Nashville sailed to Beaufort, North Carolina, where it was sold to private owners as a blockade-runner. Renamed the Thomas L. Wragg, it became the privateer Rattlesnake in November 1862. Union warships trapped and sank the ship in Georgia’s Ogeechee River on February 28, 1863. Robert Francis Smith See also Adams, Charles Francis, Sr.; Blockade of the Confederacy; Blockade-Runners; Bulloch, James Dunwody; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Letters of Marque and Reprisal; Privateers; Trent Affair

References Scharf, J. Thomas. History of the Confederate States Navy from Its Organization to the Surrender of Its Last Vessel. 1887; reprint, New York: Random House, 1996. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vols. 12–13. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1901. 443

444 |â•‡ Nashville, CSS, Ironclad

Nashville, CSS, Ironclad One of a three-ship class of Confederate side-wheel casemated ironclads. The Nashville was intended for the defense of Mobile Bay. Laid down at Montgomery, Alabama, it was launched in mid-1863 but was never formally commissioned. Another ship in the class—never named—was under construction at Selma, Alabama, by the firm of Shirley; it was launched in March 1863 but irreparably damaged in the launching, and was broken up in April 1864. A third side-wheel ironclad was begun at Owen Bluff, Alabama, but not launched. The Nashville was 1,100 tons, 271 feet in overall length, and 62 feet, 6 inches, in beam, with a depth of 13 feet and draft of 10 feet, 9 inches. The ship had two engines. Crew complement is unknown. Its armor was taken from CSS Baltic, which was rotten. The armor consisted of three layers of 1-inch plate on the front of the casemate and pilothouse. The first layer was installed horizontally, while the second and third were put in place vertically. The back of the casemate had one layer of vertical iron, but there was none on the ship’s sides. Armament in May 1865 consisted of three 7-inch Brooke rifled guns and one 24-pounder Dahlgren boat howitzer. The Nashville was towed from Montgomery to Mobile for completion, but this was never accomplished. Lieutenant Charles C. Simms, formerly the commander of the Baltic, assumed command of the still-incomplete Nashville on July 21, 1864. The Nashville did not see action in the Battle of Mobile Bay (August 5, 1864). On November 26 Simms was reassigned, and Lieutenant John W. Bennet was ordered to take his place. Ordered to help defend Mobile from attacking Union troops, Lieutenant Bennet moved the Nashville in the Blakely River to near Spanish Fort on March 27, 1865. The hard-pressed Confederate Army pleaded for assistance, and with the gunboat Morgan absent, Bennet tried to bring the Nashville into position to assist. There was just sufficient water for the Nashville to pass over submerged pilings in the river before it promptly ran aground at the juncture of the Apalachee and Blakely rivers. It was March 29 before the Nashville could be floated free. Not until March 30 did the Nashville enter the fray when, anchored between batteries Tracy and Huger, it opened up on and several times drove off Union troops and sappers working toward Spanish Fort. That night and the next, the ironclad’s boats helped to remove Confederate wounded from the fort. On March 31 the ironclad was hit eight times by fire from a Union battery ashore; one of the hits disabled a gun carriage. On April 1 the Nashville steamed back to Mobile. That day and the next were spent receiving repairs, including work on a leaking boiler, before the Nashville returned to the Blakely River and immediately provided effective support to Confederate troops on land that day and the next. It then shifted position to a point between the Raft and Upper Tensas (Tensaw) rivers, where it again shelled Union

Naval Academy, Confederateâ•‡ | 445

positions. The Nashville regularly shifted positions depending on army requirements and continued to provide effective supporting fire to the Confederate defenders ashore until April 9, when the Confederates evacuated Spanish Fort. The Nashville then moved to the mouth of the Tansas River to take on additional ammunition. With the surrender of Mobile on April 12, the Nashville and several small steamers took on the crews of the small rams Huntsville and Tuscaloosa, which were then scuttled in the main channel of the Spanish River. The remaining ships then moved up the Tombigbee River. With Union ships under Acting Rear Admiral Henry K. Thatcher soon arriving to seal off the mouth of the Tombigbee and prepare an assault, Confederate Captain Ebenezer Farrand, commanding the Tombigbee flotilla, surrendered the Nashville and the other ships on May 10, 1865. Sold by the U.S. government on November 22, 1867, the Nashville was broken up for scrap. Spencer C. Tucker See also Baltic, CSS; Farrand, Ebenezer; Flotilla; Ironclads, Confederate; Mobile, Alabama; Mobile, Siege of; Mobile Bay; Mobile Bay, Battle of; Selma Naval Gun Foundry; Simms, Charles Carroll; Thatcher, Henry Knox

References Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. Still, William N., Jr. Iron Afloat: The Story of the Confederate Armorclads. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1985. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. II, Vol. 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1921.

Naval Academy, Confederate Counterpart to the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, established by the Confederate States of America in 1861. As with the academy at Annapolis, the school’s primary objective was to train midshipmen to serve as officers for the navy. As civil war loomed, members of the Confederate Congress saw the need for training young men for its navy. Thus, they authorized the creation of the Confederate States Naval Academy on February 20, 1861, preceding formal hostilities with the Union by nearly two months. One of the main advocates of the academy was Confederate secretary of the navy Stephen R. Mallory, who had served as the chairman of the Naval Affairs Committee in the U.S. Senate prior to secession. Unlike the U.S. Naval Academy, which had formal grounds and a dedicated training ship, the Confederacy opted for simply one training ship to serve as the academy’s entire school. With the capture of Norfolk, Virginia, the Confederates secured the Yorktown, a 1,300-ton side-wheel steamship that had been a

446 |â•‡ Naval Academy, Confederate

passenger and freight ship operating between New York and Richmond. The ship had belonged to the Old Dominion Steam-Ship Line prior to the war. The Confederates converted the Yorktown into a warship and renamed it the Patrick Henry. It served as the home of the naval academy. After the Patrick Henry’s conversion, the ship was placed under the command of the James River Squadron and based below Drewry’s Bluff, on a bend on the James River about seven miles below the Confederate capital of Richmond. As a warship, Patrick Henry also had an enlisted crew aboard and formed part of the defense structure of Richmond. Commander John M. Brooke, chief of the Office of Ordnance and Hydrography, organized the academy and had overall supervision. The first superintendent and commandant of the new academy was Lieutenant William H. Parker, a veteran of the Mexican-American War (1846–1848) and an 1847 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, where he had also taught prior to the Civil War. As with the U.S. Naval Academy, young men received their nominations as midshipmen from members of Congress or the president and were admitted between the ages of 14 and 18. The academy originally admitted 106 acting midshipmen, who took courses that included seamanship, gunnery, navigation, mathematics, modern languages, geography, and history. Studies began in July 1863. In the spring of 1864 the Union Army mounted a new offensive in Virginia. In May some Confederate midshipmen were reassigned either to other ships in the squadron or to the batteries on Drewry’s Bluff. Despite nearby hostile actions, however, the midshipmen continued their studies through the year, an experience not shared by their counterparts in Newport. Although the Confederate Congress recommended increasing the number of midshipmen in late 1864, President Jefferson Davis opposed the measure because of the critical need for soldiers in the army. In March 1865 the Patrick Henry was directed upriver to Rocketts Navy Yard in Richmond, and Secretary of the Navy Mallory ordered the ship prepared for destruction in the event of an evacuation of Richmond. On April 1 midshipmen were ordered to report to the army while the Patrick Henry was burned to avoid capture. Mallory hoped to reestablish the academy either in Georgia or North Carolina, but the end of the war later that month rendered this action unnecessary. Claude G. Berube See also Brooke, John Mercer; Davis, Jefferson Finis; James River; James River Squadron, CSA; Mallory, Stephen Russell; Naval Academy, United States; Navy, CSA; Parker, William Harwar; Richmond, Virginia

References Campbell, R. Thomas. Academy on the James: The Confederate Naval School. Shippensburg, PA: Burd Street Press, 1998. Conrad, James Lee. Rebel Reefers: The Organization and Midshipmen of the Confederate States Naval Academy. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2003.

Naval Academy, United Statesâ•‡ | 447

Naval Academy, United States Professional school to train midshipmen to become U.S. Navy or Marine Corps officers. Established in 1845 and located on the Severn River in Annapolis, Maryland, the goals of the academy have been to instruct the midshipmen in an atmosphere that promotes good morals, mental acuity, and physical fitness. President John Adams first suggested a school for naval officers. Prior to the creation of a naval college, many naval officers held the traditional view that the best education for future officers was at sea on the job. Others simply opposed the expense of such a naval academy. A naval college was briefly established at the Naval Asylum at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. The asylum served as a hospital and convalescent home for disabled and infirm sailors and as a naval school for midshipmen. But in the wake of a mutiny aboard USS Somers in 1842, the spirited debate between providing formal education or training on ships further shifted toward creating a new school. On the recommendation of Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft, President James K. Polk authorized the transfer of Fort Severn in Annapolis from the army to the navy on June 16, 1845, for the purpose of establishing a naval school. The academy was formally opened on October 10, 1845, under its first superintendent, Commander Franklin Buchanan, later a rear admiral in the Confederate Navy during the Civil War. Midshipmen were accepted between the ages of 13 and 15. Initially they received two years of study, spent three years at sea, and then completed their education at the academy for one more year. Midshipmen now complete four years of academic study supplemented by cruises in the summer. Because of the relative proximity of the academy to the Confederacy, the Naval Academy was moved temporarily to Newport, Rhode Island, for the duration of the Civil War (1861–1865). On May 9, 1861, the steamer Baltic and the frigate Constitution arrived at Newport with the naval academy’s entire faculty, staff, and midshipmen on board. The Constitution, along with a local leased hotel, served as barracks and classrooms during the war. In the meantime, the facilities at Annapolis were pressed into service as an army field hospital and post. In response to rapid technological advances that were changing the very premises of naval warfare in the 1860s, Captain George S. Blake, the Naval Academy’s superintendent, advocated curriculum changes that had midshipmen studying mechanical drawing, chemistry, calculus, and geometry. Some high-ranking naval officials, such as Rear Admiral David D. Porter, fretted that the new focus on science was coming at the price of practical, hands-on training and exercises. In response to such worries, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles created an oversight board in May 1865 to evaluate the academy and its curriculum. The board, headed by Vice Admiral David G. Farragut, concluded that the academy had suffered while located in Newport. It also found that the curriculum changes had been

448 |â•‡ Naval Brigade

too abrupt and too sweeping. Just a few months later, Porter was named as the new superintendent, and the academy was reassembled at Annapolis. Claude G. Berube and Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr. See also Blake, George Smith; Buchanan, Franklin; Farragut, David Glasgow; Naval Academy, Confederate; Navy, U.S.; Philadelphia Naval Asylum; Philadelphia Navy Yard; Porter, David Dixon; Welles, Gideon

References Lovett, Leland R. School of the Sea: The Annapolis Tradition in American Life. New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1941. Puleston, W. D. Annapolis: Gangway to the Quarterdeck. New York: Appleton-Century, 1942. Sweetman, Jack. The U.S. Naval Academy: An Illustrated History. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1979.

Naval Brigade A naval brigade is a body of sailors serving in a ground-combat role to augment land forces. Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren, who assumed command of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron in June 1863, created a naval unit, formally known as the Fleet Brigade, to fight ashore. Headed by Commander George H. Preble and numbering 492 officers and men (29 officers, 145 naval artillerists, 156 naval infantry, 156 marines, and 6 black hospital stewards and nurses), the brigade was equipped with two naval field batteries, each with four Dahlgren smoothbore boat howitzers and two rifled 12-pounder howitzers drawn from the naval battery on Morris Island and from ships of the squadron. Dahlgren assigned 20 men to each howitzer, which was pulled by drag ropes. Thirteen men were to service the howitzers and 7 were to act as infantry, each armed with a short rifled musket (the Plymouth musket, of Dahlgren’s own design). Four pioneers were attached to each howitzer to level the ground for its use or to construct breastworks, if required. The marines, who were divided into three companies, were to act as skirmishers. The brigade was created in response to a request from General John G. Foster, commander of the Department of the South, to try to secure the Charleston and Savannah Railroad in support of Major General William T. Sherman’s advance to Savannah and the sea. Embarked on three steamers, the brigade proceeded up the Broad River and was landed in less than 30 minutes at Boyd’s Neck, South Carolina, on November 19, 1864. The brigade fought alongside U.S. Army units under brigadier generals Edward E. Potter and John P. Hatch in the Battle of Honey Hill, near Grahamville, on November 30. The brigade then proceeded with the troops to Tulifinny Cross Roads, where it took part in additional fighting on December 6 and 9.

Naval Efficiency Boardâ•‡ | 449

Sailors and marines fought ashore in other operations, most notably during the Fort Fisher Campaign, when on January 15, 1865, some 400 marines and 1,000 sailors were landed to assault the fort from its sea face. Although they incurred heavy casualties and their attack was unsuccessful, they helped to divert the Confederate defenders, allowing the Union army assault to succeed. Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Dahlgren, John Adolph Bernard; Dahlgren Boat Howitzers; Dahlgren Guns; Fort Fisher Campaign; Marine Corps, U.S.; Morris Island, South Carolina, Union Operations against; Preble, George Henry; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron

References Browning, Robert M., Jr. From Cape Charles to Cape Fear: The North Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1993. Browning, Robert M., Jr. Success Is All That Was Expected: The South Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War. Dulles, VA: Brassey’s, 2002. Tucker, Spencer C. “The Dahlgren Boat Howitzer.” Naval History 6(3) (Fall 1992): 50–54. Westwood, Howard C. “Benjamin Butler’s Naval Brigade.” Civil War History 34(3) (September 1988): 253–270.

Naval Efficiency Board Major naval reform in the years just before the Civil War. There was growing sentiment that the promotion system based on seniority should be replaced with one centered on merit. The main argument for the seniority system had been fear of favoritism in appointments, leading to an aristocratic officer corps and a possible threat to the democratic republic. By the mid-1850s, however, the navy had a bloated officer corps with little chance of promotion for those holding lower ranks, and the upper ranks were completely filled by older men. In 1854 the navy had 68 captains, the youngest of whom was 56 years old. There were 97 commanders, 74 of whom were between 50 and 55. The navy’s 327 lieutenants were between 30 and 50 years old, and its 198 passed midshipmen were from 21 to 37. This meant that a lieutenant could expect to be promoted to commander at age 53, and a commander could expect to reach captain at 74. Secretary of the Navy James C. Dobbin (1853–1857) wanted a commission consisting of officers of different ranks to examine the whole promotion system and create a list of those officers who should be retired and those who should be promoted. This list would then be subject to presidential approval, reversal, or modification. On February 28, 1855, Congress passed “An Act to promote the Efficiency of the Navy.” It created a board of 15 officers: 5 captains, 5 commanders, and 5 lieutenants, headed by Commodore Samuel F. Du Pont, the most

450 |â•‡ Naval Efficiency Board

vocal navy advocate of establishing such a board. Along with Du Pont, the board’s most influential members were commodores William Bradford Shubrick and Matthew C. Perry. Officially appointed by President Franklin Pierce on June 5, 1855, the board met in Washington, D.C., and had access to all Navy Department records. The board began meeting on June 20 and rendered its report little more than a month later, on July 26. The board examined the career records of 712 officers and determined that 201 of them were incapable of performing all duties afloat and ashore. It placed 71 on leave-of-absence pay and 81 on furlough pay, and it discharged 49 altogether. Dobbin endorsed the report and sent it on to Pierce, who approved it on September 12. As might be expected, there was an immediate and sharp outcry from many within the navy. In subsequent congressional debate, it came to light that the board had deliberated for 140 hours, for an average of only 13 minutes on each officer’s career. The board had also failed to keep records of its deliberations and voting, and its members refused to disclose the bases of its decisions. All this enhanced a feeling of paranoia in the navy and heightened charges of conspiracy, which helped undermine the board’s accomplishments. Although the board did break the logjam in promotion, many of those initially dropped were ultimately restored, thus swelling the list of active-duty officers. Senior officers placed on the inactive list believed they had been disgraced. Those on furlough shared these sentiments, but the strongest objections came from those who had been discharged. Some of the officers lobbied Congress directly, and in January 1857 Congress passed legislation that offered all officers the chance to appeal to a court of inquiry. Those not reinstated would be given a year’s pay, as Dobbin recommended. Over the next year, 118 of the 201 officers involved requested a court of inquiry. In March 1858 Congress authorized the president to restore those officers who had been recommended by the courts of inquiry. As a consequence, 63 men were returned to the active list and another 36 had their retired-list status altered. Although it was certainly controversial, the Naval Efficiency Board did help to improve overall U.S. Navy officer quality on the eve of the Civil War. Spencer C. Tucker See also Du Pont, Samuel Francis; Navy, U.S.

References Paullin, Charles Oscar. Paullin’s History of Naval Administration, 1775–1911. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1968. Tucker, Spencer C. Andrew Foote: Civil War Admiral on Western Waters. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000. Weddle, Kevin J. Lincoln’s Tragic Admiral: The Life of Samuel Francis Du Pont. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2005.

Naval Gunneryâ•‡ | 451

Naval Gunnery Naval gunnery practice in the Civil War was little changed from that of the Mexican-American War (1846–1848). There was a direct correlation between the size of a gun crew and rate of fire. Fourteen men was the suggested number for operating a heavy 32-pounder long gun on a truck carriage, while the 1864 U.S. Navy Ordnance Instructions specified 16 men for the IX-inch Dahlgren on a Marsilly carriage, and 24 men for the XI-inch pivot-mounted Dahlgren. The general rule of thumb was 1 man per 500 pounds of metal in the gun if it was mounted on a truck carriage, or 1 man per 450 pounds of gun metal if on a pivot mount. In case both sides of the ship had to be fought at once, the size of each gun crew was halved. Each gun-crew member had a precise assignment. The 14-man crew for a heavy 32-pounder included the first gun captain, who had actual charge of the gun; the second gun captain; sponger and assistant sponger; loader and assistant loader; and tacklemen, handspikemen, and auxiliaries. Not counted as a formal part of the gun crew, but essential to its operation, the boy or “powder monkey” assigned to each gun retrieved individual cartridges from the magazine and carried them to the gun. The preliminary to battle was the command calling the crew to quarters, generally effected by a drum roll. The men placed their hammocks in the hammock rails along the sides of the ship, if not already there, to provide some additional protection against small-arms fire. Among other preparations, the crew stowed furniture and other articles not necessary to battle, distributed small arms, made ready the rigging axes and boarding axes, filled fire buckets and water tubs from which the men might drink, and dropped the ship’s boats astern. Ordnance instructions during the Civil War provided for 10-step commands for both broadside and pivot guns. For broadside guns, the first command was “Silence! Man the starboard (or port) guns!” Generally the guns were kept loaded in a hostile environment, but they could be made ready for action in as little as three minutes after the first beat of the drum. Assuming that the guns were not loaded, the following was the general sequence of commands, all of which were given by the gun captain. When the order was given to clear for action (“Cast loose and provide!”), the gun crew cast loose the portsill lanyard, cleared the gun, and made it ready for action. On “Run in!” the crew worked the train tackle and handspikes to run the gun in, and then placed quoins (wedges) in front of the trucks (wheels) to prevent the gun from moving with the roll of the ship. “Serve the vent and sponge” was the command to ram a dampened wool sponge down the muzzle to the end of the bore with a worm, both to extinguish any sparks and remove any debris. At the same time, the gun captain cleared the vent with a priming wire and sealed it with thumbstall (a leather thimble worn on the thumb). On the command of “Load!” the charge in the form of a powder bag was placed in the muzzle end of the bore and rammed home. (Pass

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boxes were colored with the type of charge: red for short, white for medium, and blue for long range.) Marks on the rammer shaft indicated that the cartridge, and later the shot or fused shell, was properly seated against the cartridge. The shot or shell then followed. On the next command, “Run out!” the crew removed the truck quoins, opened the port shutters, and used the tackles and handspikes to return the gun to its proper position for firing. On “Prime!” the gun captain again made certain the vent was clear and, by running the priming wire down the vent, punched a hole in the cartridge bag. He then inserted a primer and turned the hammer down on it. The next command was “Aim.” Under the direction of the gun captain the crew used the handspikes and elevating screw (or a wooden quoin in the case of older guns) to train and elevate/depress the gun on its target. The men then assumed their stations well to the sides of the gun so as not to be caught when it recoiled against its breeching. The last command for firing was the two-part “Ready—fire.” The gun captain held the lock lanyard taut until, according to the rise and fall of the vessel, the gun was properly aligned on the waterline of the enemy vessel, and on “fire” he sharply pulled the lanyard, which fired the gun and caused the gun and its carriage to recoil sharply back on its rope breeching. The firing sequence would be repeated as many times as necessary until the command of “Secure,” when the crew either secured or housed (in the case of lower deck) the gun. Naval battles were usually not of long duration, but they could be bloody. Wooden and metal splinters caused by the explosion of a shell or hit of a shot were the chief causes of personnel casualties. Only on rare occasions during the Civil War would a crew be called upon to board an enemy ship. The men had no assigned weapons but would be issued a variety of small arms to include carbines, muskets, rifles, revolvers, boarding pikes and axes, cutlasses, and bayonets. Both sides in the war followed these standard procedures. Given two ships of equal size, success in battle depended on thorough training, with the side that could fire its guns the fastest and with the most accuracy being the more likely to triumph. As with warfare generally, however, luck always played a role. Spencer C. Tucker See also Artillery Projectiles, Naval; Dahlgren Boat Howitzers; Dahlgren Guns; Naval Ordnance

References Olmstead, Edwin, Wayne E. Stark, and Spencer C. Tucker. The Big Guns: Civil War Siege, Seacoast, and Naval Cannon. Alexandria Bay, NY: Museum Restoration Service, 1997. Tucker, Spencer C. Arming the Fleet: U.S. Navy Ordnance in the Muzzle-Loading Era. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. U.S. Navy Department, Bureau of Ordnance. Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy, Relating to the Preparation of Vessels of War for Battle, to the Duties of Officers and Others When at Quarters, to Ordnance and Ordnance Stores, and to Gunnery. 2nd ed. Washington, DC: G. W. Bowman, 1860.

Naval Investigating Board, Confederate Congressâ•‡ | 453

Naval Investigating Board, Confederate Congress Although he was a highly effective administrator who did the most with the very limited resources available to him, Confederate secretary of the navy Stephen R. Mallory had his critics, both from within the Confederate Navy and in the Confederate Congress. President Jefferson Davis himself sometimes made cutting remarks about Mallory behind his back, but the secretary’s real and most persistent critics came from the Congress and included opponents of Davis who saw in his friend Mallory a way to attack the president. The criticism sharply increased following Confederate military reverses, including the loss to the Union of such key ports as New Orleans, Memphis, and Norfolk, as well as the scuttling of the ironclads Virginia, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Mallory’s bitterest critics included congressmen Henry S. Foote from Tennessee and Charles Conrad of Louisiana. Conrad had lost extensive land holdings in the capture of New Orleans. Indeed, Conrad proposed a bill to abolish the navy entirely and transfer its functions to the War Department. This bill failed to pass, as did one censuring Mallory personally. On August 27, 1862, however, despite opposition from Albert Gallatin Brown, chairman of the Congressional Committee on Naval Affairs and a strong supporter of Mallory throughout the war, the House of Representatives adopted a resolution calling for the creation of a 10-man committee—with 5 members from both the House and Senate—to conduct an investigation into “the administration of the Navy Department under its present head.” Foote was among those drawn from the House. The committee investigated three major questions: the role of the navy in the loss of New Orleans, whether the navy had done all it could to complete the Louisiana and Mississippi, and whether the loss of these two ships could be laid to the department. Most of the hearings focused on the loss of the Mississippi. The proceedings revealed that Mallory had urged rapid completion of the ship and had instructed Commander John K. Mitchell to employ private labor toward that end. Indeed, the investigation revealed gross inefficiency and poor organization not in Richmond but in the local individuals charged with the defense of New Orleans. Mallory even came in for some praise for his efforts. Mallory did not have to testify, but he was required to submit documents. Although the proceedings cleared Mallory of any wrongdoing, they deeply hurt him and cost him precious time that could have been devoted to the pressing concerns facing the navy. Spencer C. Tucker See also Davis, Jefferson Finis; Ironclads, Confederate; Louisiana, CSS; Mallory, Stephen Russell; Memphis, First Battle of; Mississippi, CSS; Mitchell, John Kirkwood; Navy, CSA; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; Norfolk Navy Yard; Virginia, CSS

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References Durkin, Joseph T. Stephen R. Mallory: Confederate Navy Chief. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1954. Gorgas, Josiah. The Civil War Diary of General Josiah Gorgas. Edited by Frank E. Vandiver. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1947. Still, William N., Jr. Confederate Shipbuilding. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1987. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. II, Vol. 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1921.

Naval Ordnance Virtually all Civil War naval ordnance was muzzle-loading, and most of it was smoothbore. In the preceding decades there had been a shift from batteries of many broadside-mounted guns to a few heavier guns in pivot mounts, bow and stern. These guns could fire over a wide arc and were designed to project heavier shot and shell at longer ranges before an enemy ship could close. This process was accelerated by the introduction of early steam warships, the side-wheels of which precluded extensive broadside batteries. Civil War naval ordnance arrangements generally called for both broadside and pivot guns. By the beginning of the war there were two basic kinds of guns aboard warships: those designed primarily to fire solid shot and those for the projection of shell. Solid shot had been the mainstay at sea for centuries, but wooden warships with their thick oak sides could absorb a tremendous number of hits; indeed it was unusual for a warship to be sunk in combat by being holed. More often, warships succumbed to fire and/or the explosion of a powder magazine, were taken by boarding, or, more often, were forced to strike their colors because of excessive personnel losses or loss of masts and rigging that allowed any enemy warship to be positioned to advantage. Shell was, however, much more destructive in its effects than shot, which often left holes that were easily patched by ships’ carpenters. All major naval powers introduced shell guns. These were lighter than shot guns of the same caliber, for they were designed for lesser powder charges. Shell guns fired fused shell in a flat trajectory and at a velocity sufficient merely to lodge in the side of an opposing vessel, where the shell would explode. This would create a large irregular hole and could also bring about more personnel casualties from the resultant shower of wooden splinters. For the first time, large ships might actually be sunk by cannon fire. Shot guns were the heaviest guns in weight of gun to weight of shot. They were designed to project shot at the highest velocities and longest ranges. Because shell

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Crew members of a Union monitor drilling with a 12-pounder Dahlgren boat howitzer on an iron field carriage. Note the lookout with telescope atop the turret and dents in turret and conning tower from Confederate cannon shot. (Naval History and Heritage Command)

guns were lighter than those firing shot, the weight of metal fired in a broadside by a warship might actually be increased at the same time that the weight of its ordnance was reduced. Shot guns were designated by weight of their shot, whereas shell guns were identified by the diameter of their bore. A gun of the same caliber might therefore be a 64-pounder if it were a shot gun, or an 8-inch if it were a shell gun. By comparison an 8-inch shell gun of 1856 weighed 63 cwt (hundred weights of 112 pounds, or 7,056 pounds); its counterpart 64-pounder shot gun weighed 105 cwt, or 11,760 pounds. The new Dahlgren shell guns, named for their inventor Commander John A. Dahlgren and introduced in the 1850s, were distinguished from their predecessors by being designated in Roman numerals, such as the most popular Dahlgren broadside gun, the IX-inch. Many contemporaries extended this designation of Roman numerals to the older shell guns as well. Shell guns were not only lighter but many also had chambered bores for the smaller powder charges. While designed to fire shell, they were also fully capable of firing shot. By the time of the Civil War, the U.S. Navy had adopted the shell gun exclusively. It is thus ironic that in naval engagements of the war, the most

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effective means of dealing with an ironclad vessel was often a shell gun firing solid shot with a much heavier charge than originally thought possible. By the 1850s, in part because of experience with them during the Crimean War (1853–1856), there was renewed interest in rifling large guns for use at sea. Rifled guns offered the advantages of longer range, greater projectile penetration, and more accurate fire. There were, however, difficulties in developing larger rifled guns. For one thing, they had to be quite strong to sustain the higher pressures created by the smaller windage (the difference between the diameter of the projectile and that of the bore). The blowing up of a gun could be disastrous, particularly in the close confines of a warship. An example of this was the bursting, during the 1862 Union siege of Island Number 10, of an old army 42-pounder converted to a rifle on board the St. Louis. It killed or wounded 15 officers and men. Rifled guns were also hard to aim accurately on the heaving deck of an underway vessel and could not fire in ricochet. The latter was important at sea because gunners were routinely instructed to fire low for fear that shot would go high and miss the target vessel entirely. Ricochet fire also greatly increased the range of shot; on hitting the water, the round ball from a smoothbore gun would continue on line to the target, whereas a rifle projectile might take off at any angle. Early rifle projectiles also tended to tumble in flight. Finally, rifled guns were very expensive. Rifled guns were not a part of U.S. Navy ordnance until the Civil War, when the Parrott gun, named for its designer and manufacturer, Robert P. Parrott of the West Point Foundry, was introduced. Rifled guns were in the minority in ships’ batteries during the war, but when they did appear, it was in tandem with shot guns. By the end of the war the Union Navy had only perhaps one-fifth of its ordnance inventory in rifled guns. Dahlgren also designed rifled guns for the Union side; but, in contrast to his smoothbores, they were not successful. In February 1862 most were withdrawn from service, and by 1864 Parrott was the only founder producing rifled guns for the U.S. Navy. The Confederates particularly favored rifled guns. They converted a number of smoothbores to rifled pieces, and they purchased rifled guns in Europe. However, Lieutenant John M. Brooke of the Confederate Navy also designed highly effective rifled guns. In 1861 the North had four foundries capable of producing the heaviest naval guns. The sole prewar source for heavy guns in the South was the Tredegar Iron Works (J. R. Anderson and Company) at Richmond, and during the conflict it produced the bulk of ordnance for the Confederacy. The Tredegar, however, was not able to cast heavy guns hollow in the so-called Rodman process, which produced guns of greater strength. Not until February 1863 did the Confederate government purchase a new facility, which became the Naval Gun Foundry at Selma, Alabama. It cast ordnance, chiefly for use against Union ironclads. A principal difference between Union and Confederate naval guns is that Confederate pieces were not turned smooth; this contributed nothing to the functioning of the gun and was a costly operation, so the exteriors of Confederate

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guns were often the same as when they left the molds. All U.S. Navy guns were turned smooth. Despite problems, Confederate naval ordnance production was sufficient to meet the Confederacy’s more modest requirements, although the lack of manufacturing facilities and skilled labor led to difficulties in mounting guns, and some shortages in shells and wrought-iron bolts. Spencer C. Tucker See also Brooke, John Mercer; Brooke Guns; Dahlgren, John Adolph Bernard; Dahlgren Boat Howitzers; Dahlgren Guns; Ironclads, Confederate; Ironclads, Union; Naval Gunnery; Parrott, Robert Parker; Parrott Guns; Selma Naval Gun Foundry; Tredegar Iron Works

References Olmstead, Edwin, Wayne E. Stark, and Spencer C. Tucker. The Big Guns: Civil War Siege, Seacoast, and Naval Cannon. Alexandria Bay, NY: Museum Restoration Service, 1997. Tucker, Spencer C. Arming the Fleet: U.S. Navy Ordnance in the Muzzle-Loading Era. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. U.S. Navy Department, Bureau of Ordnance. Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy, Relating to the Preparation of Vessels of War for Battle, to the Duties of Officers and Others When at Quarters, to Ordnance and Ordnance Stores, and to Gunnery. 2nd ed. Washington, DC: G. W. Bowman, 1860.

Navy, CSA The Confederacy faced major challenges at sea. With only scant resources, Confederate leaders hoped to break the Union naval blockade to ensure the export of cotton and other agricultural goods and to import critical military and industrial goods. The Confederate Navy came into existence less than two months before the start of the war and had to be built virtually from scratch, with almost no industrial base to support it. Confederate President Jefferson Davis generally gave Secretary of the Navy Stephen R. Mallory a free hand. Mallory proved to be an exceptionally able choice. The former U.S. senator from Florida was well informed on naval affairs, having headed the Naval Affairs Committee before the war. The problems facing him were daunting, however. Mallory had only five ships, inherited from the seceded states. He secured through seizure or purchase four Revenue Service cutters, three slavers, two privately owned coastal steamers, and the side-wheeler Fulton, laid up at the Pensacola Navy Yard. None of these had been purposely built as warships, with the exception of the old Fulton. As did the U.S. Navy, the Confederates also purchased merchant steamers for conversion into warships, but unlike the North, the South faced a paucity of both ships to purchase and facilities for their conversion, let alone for new construction. Only Richmond, New Orleans, and Memphis

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had properly equipped facilities at the start of the war that could, given the opportunity, construct and repair ironclad vessels. Compounding Mallory’s problems, the shipbuilding facilities of New Orleans, Norfolk, and Memphis were all taken by the Union early in the conflict. The South also faced a major problem in building the steam engines required for the new ironclad vessels. Skilled artisans were in short supply, a difficulty compounded by the need of manpower for the army. Only the Tredegar Iron Works (J. R. Anderson and Company) of Richmond could manufacture entire propulsion systems. In consequence, most of the steam engines that powered Confederate naval vessels were requisitioned from civilian vessels, and as a result the vast majority of Southern steam warships were inadequately powered. Often their engines broke down entirely, as was the case with the Arkansas, one of the bestknown Confederate ironclads of the war. Whereas the Union naval budget for 1861–1862 represented about 9 percent of the total U.S. budget, the South’s navy was allotted only about 4 percent of the Confederate budget. In consequence, Mallory planned for a force of only about 3,000 officers and men. The top strength of the Confederate States Navy occurred in the spring of 1864, with 753 officers and 4,450 enlisted men. Marine Corps strength that same year totaled 749 officers and men. These figures represent about one-tenth the size of the Union Navy. Understandably, the army always had first claim on resources. Mallory was also always hard-pressed for cash, as was of course the case with the Confederate government in general. Unable, or unwilling, to finance the war through taxation, the Confederate Congress resorted to borrowing, which brought chronic and even ruinous inflation. As a result, Mallory was never able to fund any program at the approved amount, and naval purchases abroad became increasingly problematic. The Confederacy did not want for trained officers. Almost all Confederate Navy officers had served in the U.S. Navy and then resigned their commissions. Among notable Confederate Navy officers were Franklin Buchanan, Raphael Semmes, Duncan Ingraham, John N. Maffitt, Josiah Tattnall, James I. Waddell, and ordnance designer John M. Brooke. Securing trained sailors proved difficult, however. It was especially hard to find trained engineers. In the several months before the outbreak of fighting, Mallory dispatched individuals to purchase supplies in the North, in Canada, and in Europe. Mallory was a staunch advocate of commerce raiding; he hoped that it would bring economic pressure on the North, divert Union warships from the blockade of Southern ports, and help bring an end to the war. With few ship-construction facilities in the South, Mallory sent agents to Europe to secure ships and to contract for the construction of others. By far the most capable of these overseas agents was James D. Bulloch, who proved singularly adroit in getting around British neutrality laws. Mallory’s other chief goal was to acquire sufficient numbers of ironclad ships to break the Union blockade and allow the Confederacy to take the offensive in

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attacking Northern ports. Indeed, the Confederacy led in this activity, albeit only briefly. A strong advocate of technological innovation, Mallory also established a Torpedo Bureau, which experimented with torpedoes (naval mines) and the means to deliver them against Union warships. The Confederacy laid a great many torpedoes in its harbors and rivers. These were of both the contact and electrically detonated varieties. The navy also developed spar torpedoes, mines on the end of a long pole fastened at the bow of a small vessel. These were carried by semisubmersibles known as Davids and even by a submarine, the H. L. Hunley, the first to actually sink a ship (the U.S. Navy steam sloop Housatonic), during the siege of Charleston on February 17, 1864. Confederate ordnance consisted mostly of prewar U.S. Navy guns, a large number of which were captured at the Norfolk Navy Yard. With only a small number of ships, Confederate requirements in this area were far more modest than those of the Union. The South did produce an ordnance designer of genius in Lieutenant John M. Brooke. His rifled guns were probably the best of their type in the war. At the start of the war, the Confederacy announced its intention to send out privateers. But decisions by the European states, led by Great Britain, denied the Confederacy the right to bring prizes into their ports, so any captures would necessarily have to be returned to the South. Getting them through the Union blockade would not be easy. Soon the Union Navy rounded up the few privateers that got to sea. Mallory wanted not private ships but government cruisers, and these carried the brunt of the war against Union commerce. Although he never gave up commerce raiding altogether, Mallory shifted to a more defensive strategy that involved smaller ironclads and the increased use of torpedoes, as well as the means to deliver them. The four best-known Confederate high-seas commerce raiders were the Sumter (the first Confederate raider), Florida (Oreto), Alabama, and Shenandoah. During the period from August 1862 to June 1864 the Alabama, captained by Raphael Semmes, cruised the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Pacific all the way to India. It sailed 75,000 miles, took 66 prizes, and sank the Union warship USS Hatteras off Galveston. Two dozen Union warships were diverted to search for it, and its exploits were a considerable boost to Confederate morale. In June 1864, off Cherbourg, France, the Alabama fought one of the war’s more dramatic naval battles but was sunk by the U.S. Navy screw steam sloop Kearsarge. The Shenandoah continued its depredations after the end of the war, devastating the Union whaling fleet. Captain James I. Waddell eventually sailed to England in his ship, the only Confederate warship to circumnavigate the globe. Although commerce raiders exacted a toll on Union merchant shipping, this provided the Confederacy only limited benefit. The Union Navy was forced to divert some naval assets into hunting down the raiders, but Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles resisted pressures to dilute the blockade. Confederate commerce raiding, therefore, succeeded mainly in contributing to the decline of the U.S. merchant

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marine, as many ships were transferred to foreign flag registry. Most did not return after the war. Above all, Mallory embraced ironclads, but this was a contest that the South could not win. Securing iron plate was a constant problem, as was transporting it over the inadequate Confederate railroad system. Most Confederate ironclads built during the war followed the design of the casemated Virginia, the ex-U.S. steam frigate Merrimack that had been scuttled at the Norfolk Navy Yard by withdrawing Union forces, then raised and rebuilt by the Confederates as an ironclad ram. Mallory arranged for the building of 34 casemated ironclads, of which only 21 were actually commissioned. There were also some 20 cruisers, of which the most famous were the Alabama, Florida, Nashville, Shenandoah, and Sumter; a dozen spar-torpedo boats; 43 government-owned blockade-runners; and a large number of river and coastal-defense vessels. In addition, the Confederacy arranged for the purchase abroad of 5 seagoing ironclads (although only the Stonewall was ever commissioned). Significant naval warfare occurred on the great inland rivers, especially the Mississippi, but also notably the Cumberland, Tennessee, and Red rivers. Throughout, the Confederacy found itself outnumbered and outgunned. After the Union capture of Vicksburg on July 4, 1863, however, the river war in the West was all but over. The North did make a major foray up the Red River the next year. It turned out to be a major Union fiasco, but not because of any Confederate naval activity. Although the Confederates did win some naval battles along the Gulf Coast, most notably at Galveston, Texas, on January 1, 1863, they were for the most part engaged in a pattern of steady defeat. Mallory’s hopes that the Virginia might be able to break the Union blockade along the Atlantic seaboard, and even threaten Northern ports, proved illusory. Ultimately most Confederate naval activity was defensive in nature, to contest Union amphibious operations but also to attempt to drive the blockaders off station. Blockade-running centered on such ports as Wilmington, Charleston, Savannah, and Galveston. As the North gained increasing control of key coastal points, however, such activity became increasingly problematic. The record of the Confederate States Navy during the Civil War is a mixed one, yet its contributions were significant. The Confederate Navy never succeeded in its chief aim of breaking the blockade, which indeed became more effective as the war progressed. Nonetheless, the Confederacy certainly made effective use of the meager resources it did possess. As with the army, it was simply overwhelmed by Union numbers and manufacturing advantage. Kenneth J. Blume and Spencer C. Tucker See also Alabama, CSS; Alabama vs. Hatteras; Alabama vs. Kearsarge; Amphibious Warfare; Arkansas, CSS; Blockade of the Confederacy; Blockade-Runners; Brooke, John Mercer; Brooke Guns; Buchanan, Franklin; Bulloch, James Dunwody; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Davids, CSS; Davis, Jefferson Finis; Florida, CSS; Galveston, Battle of; Guerre de Course; H. L. Hunley, CSS; Housatonic, USS; Ingraham, Duncan Nathaniel;

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Ironclads, Confederate; James River Squadron, CSA; Laird Rams; Letters of Marque and Reprisal; Maffitt, John Newland; Mallory, Stephen Russell; Marine Corps, CSA; Mississippi River Defense Fleet; Nashville, CSS, Cruiser; Naval Academy, Confederate; Naval Investigating Board, Confederate Congress; Naval Ordnance; Norfolk Navy Yard; Pensacola Navy Yard; Privateers; Ranks, Union and Confederate Navies; Red River Campaign; Riverine Warfare; Scofield and Markham Gate City Iron Works; Selma Naval Gun Foundry; Semmes, Raphael; Shelby Iron Company; Shenandoah, CSS; Spar Torpedo; Stonewall, CSS; Strategy, Confederate Naval; Submarines; Sumter, CSS; Tattnall, Josiah; Torpedoes; Tredegar Iron Works; Vicksburg Campaign; Virginia, CSS; Waddell, James Iredell

References Brooke, George M., Jr. John M. Brooke: Naval Scientist and Educator. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1980. Bulloch, James Dunwody. The Secret Service of the Confederate States in Europe, or How the Confederate Cruisers Were Equipped. New York: Modern Library, 2001. Dalzell, George W. The Flight from the Flag: The Continuing Effect of the Civil War upon the American Carrying Trade. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1940. Luraghi, Raimondo. A History of the Confederate Navy. Translated by Paolo D. Coletta. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1996. Scharf, J. Thomas. History of the Confederate States Navy from Its Organization to the Surrender of Its Last Vessel. 1887; reprint, New York: Random House, 1996. Still, William N., Jr. Iron Afloat: The Story of the Confederate Armorclads. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1985. Still, William N., Jr., ed. The Confederate Navy: The Ships, Men and Organization, 1861–65. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Navy, U.S. Naval power played a central role in Union planning from the beginning of the war and contributed substantially to the Union’s defeat of the Confederacy. “At all the watery margins,” President Abraham Lincoln commented in reference to the men of the navy, “they have been present. Not only on the deep sea, the broad bay, the rapid river, but also up the narrow muddy bayou, and wherever the ground was a little damp, they have made their tracks.” Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles headed the Union naval effort. Welles, who was from Connecticut, had during 1846–1849 been chief of the Naval Bureau of Provisions and Clothing. An efficient administrator, he turned out to be one of Lincoln’s best cabinet choices. Welles had the final decision on ship construction, purchases, and conversions. He also determined the broad outlines of naval policy, and he oversaw the conduct of operations. President Lincoln was interested in naval matters, as he was in all activities of the federal government, but his chief preoccupation was with the army, and he rarely interfered in naval matters. Welles

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and able Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gustavus V. Fox (a new position created early in the war) worked well together, with Welles making all major decisions regarding strategy. Fox’s day-to-day management of the department kept it functioning smoothly. A major part of the story of the U.S. Navy during the Civil War is its growth in terms of ships, materiel, and personnel. The navy began the war in April 1861 with but 90 ships on the Navy Register, of which 21 were unseaworthy, 27 were laid up in naval yards for extensive repairs or had not yet been launched, and 28 were on foreign stations, far from the rivers, harbors, and coastlines of the United States. Only 14 ships were actually on Home Station: 7 screw steamers, 3 sailing frigates, 1 side-wheeler, 2 storeships, and 1 steam tender. During the war, the Navy Department ordered some 200 new warships (not all were completed during the war), but it also purchased or leased another 418 vessels. By the end of 1861 the fleet had swelled to 264 ships, and by the end of the war it numbered 671 ships and more than 51,000 men, making it the largest navy in the world next to Great Britain’s. The Civil War occurred during a period of great change in naval technology. Steam power, ironclad warships, and more powerful ordnance were transforming naval warfare. To meet the crisis of secession, the U.S. Navy not only expanded rapidly, but it also built many technologically advanced or innovative warships. Most famous of these was the revolutionary Monitor. Although successful for its purpose, it had only limited use outside coastal waters but nonetheless became the model for subsequent Union ironclad construction. Other noteworthy designs were the Unadilla-class “90-day gunboats”; the “double-enders” (side-wheel gunboats with rudders at each end so that the vessel could operate backward or forward in narrow rivers); the experimental ironclad New Ironsides (patterned on the French Gloire and a far more practical design for coastal operations than the monitors); and the monster ram USS Dunderberg, which was not completed until after the war’s end and was then sold to France. In addition to a rapid expansion of the fleet, the numbers of personnel swelled rapidly, from 7,600 in 1861 to 51,000 in 1865. The war, in effect, solved the longstanding promotion bottleneck that had plagued the antebellum navy but, in turn, created a postbellum “hump.” Among the noteworthy officers whose fame was reinforced or ensured as a result of the war were David G. Farragut, Andrew H. Foote, Samuel F. Du Pont, David D. Porter, and John A. Dahlgren. The navy’s tripartite strategic mission was shaped by geographic realities, military necessities, political and diplomatic limitations, and Confederate policies. Lincoln followed the broad outlines of Lieutenant General Winfield Scott’s so-called Anaconda Plan to starve the South into submission by controlling the Confederacy’s three main maritime borders and then bisecting it with large Union armies. Welles concentrated the bulk of Union naval resources on the naval blockade of the South. The distances and problems presented by the blockade were considerable. From Alexandria, Virginia, to the Rio Grande in Texas, the Southern coastline extended

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more than 3,500 miles. Indeed, for much of this distance, the outer banks presented a double coastline. There were 189 harbors, river mouths, or indentations that would have to be guarded. The Mississippi and its tributary rivers counted 3,615 miles, and sounds, bayous, rivers, and inlets along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts constituted another 2,000 miles. The Union blockaders were also handicapped by the fact that the largest Southern ports boasted substantial defensive works of stone or brick. Apart from the blockade, the navy’s chief duties would be to support army operations ashore and to hunt down and destroy Confederate privateers (at the beginning of the war) and commerce raiders on the high seas. Union Navy riverine operations were a crucial part of the Anaconda Plan. River duties typically included operations against Confederate gunboats, the reduction of Confederate forts and batteries, transportation of troops, and amphibious raids against Confederate lines of communication. Important naval support of army operations occurred on the James, York, Potomac, Ohio, Tennessee, Cumberland, Mississippi, and Red rivers. Strategically, the most critical riverine operations took place on the Mississippi, and securing control of that great river was a central Union military objective, as this would cut off the Trans-Mississippi West from the remainder of the Confederacy. Union naval operations in the West were initially under the army, which paid for the first warships there. Naval officers commanded the ships, however. Flag Officer Foote, who worked well with his army counterpart Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant, won the first big Union victory in the West, at Fort Henry on the Tennessee River in February 1862. After the follow-on Union victory (essentially won by Grant) at Fort Donelson on the Cumberland, Foote operated on the upper Mississippi, attempting to push through to Nashville. At the same time, Flag Officer Farragut led Union naval forces in assaulting the Mississippi’s mouth. His squadron ran past the Confederate forts and took New Orleans in April 1862. Securing Vicksburg proved more difficult. It resisted Union efforts until July 1863, but ships under Rear Admiral David D. Porter played a key role in Grant’s land victory there. Army-navy cooperation in the West had, for the most part, been excellent, especially between Grant and Foote and between Grant and Porter, Foote’s successor. Fighting continued in the West and on the Gulf Coast, however. The 1864 campaign up the Red River, a fiasco hatched in Washington, was marked by poor army-navy coordination. Union operations against Galveston and other points along the Texas coast were also largely unsuccessful. In August 1864 Farragut won the last great contest on the Gulf Coast, and the most sanguinary naval battle of the war, in Mobile Bay. The best-known Civil War naval battle was that in the East, in Hampton Roads, part of the 1862 Peninsula Campaign against Richmond. In the first clash between two ironclad ships in history, the Monitor fought to a draw with CSS Virginia on March 9, 1862. Both sides claimed victory. The battle was not renewed, and both ships were soon lost, the Monitor to a severe storm and the Virginia scuttled to

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prevent capture. The battle had tremendous significance for subsequent warship construction, with each side building ironclad ships of the other side’s type. Most Union naval assets were, however, devoted to blockade duties. Ultimately the blockaders were divided into four separate naval commands: the North Atlantic, South Atlantic, East Gulf, and West Gulf blockading squadrons. From mid1861 until the end of the war in April 1865, Union blockading operations focused systematically on closing off centers of Confederate blockade-running and trade. Important blockade-related naval operations included those in Hatteras Inlet in August 1861 and Port Royal in November 1861; the capture of New Orleans in April 1862; the battle of Mobile Bay in August 1864; and amphibious operations against Charleston (1863–1865) and Fort Fisher (December 1864–January 1865). Although blockade-runners continued to get through to the end of the war, the Union blockade was nonetheless an important factor in the Union victory. It starved the South, with its poor manufacturing base, of such essential supplies as railroad iron and steam engines, leading to the breakdown of the Southern transportation and distribution systems. This adversely impacted Southern soldiers and civilians alike. For the Union sailors involved, blockade duties typically saw extended periods of tedium broken only by the occasional chase or engagement. Although Welles came under considerable criticism from Northern business interests for what was perceived to be his lack of attention to the problem, the navy did send out warships to sink or capture the Confederate commerce raiders. This effort was necessarily the lowest Union naval priority. Confederate secretary of the navy Stephen R. Mallory had hoped that Southern commerce raiding would draw off substantial numbers of Union warships from the blockade, but Welles refused to take the bait. Nonetheless, dozens of Union warships were committed to the effort. Unfortunately for them, the Atlantic and Pacific were vast areas in which the raiders could hide. Although Confederate commerce raiding did force large numbers of Union merchant ships to foreign ownership and drove up shipping rates, it did not have the effect that the Confederates had hoped. Eventually, Union warships hunted down such raiders as the Florida and Alabama. The most spectacular of these engagements occurred on June 19, 1864, when the Union screw steam sloop Kearsarge sank the Confederate raider Alabama off Cherbourg, France. Union efforts on the high seas occasionally had unfortunate effects. In November 1861 overzealous U.S. Navy captain Charles Wilkes of USS San Jacinto precipitated a major diplomatic crisis by overhauling the British mail steamer Trent and removing two Confederate envoys, James Mason and John Slidell. War with Britain loomed, but Lincoln was determined to avoid it, and the so-called Trent Affair was ultimately resolved peacefully with the release of the two commissioners. Finally, mention should be made of the tremendous Union naval logistical effort, both to support its own blockading efforts and to supply the army in amphibious operations. Critical in this was the decision taken by Washington early in the war to secure bases from which the blockading squadrons could operate. The Union

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Navy demonstrated great ability in setting up and maintaining repair and supply facilities, as well as putting together the vast logistics network necessary to supply coal, food, and essential military supplies. This impressive effort goes largely unmentioned in most histories of the war. Kenneth J. Blume and Spencer C. Tucker See also Alabama, CSS; Alabama vs. Kearsarge; Amphibious Warfare; Anaconda Strategy; Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Blockade Board; Blockade of the Confederacy; Blockade-Runners; Cairo-Class River Ironclads; Charleston, South Carolina, Du Pont’s Attack on; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Dahlgren, John Adolph Bernard; Dahlgren Guns; Dunderberg, USS; Du Pont, Samuel Francis; Eads, James Buchanan; East Gulf Blockading Squadron; Ericsson, John; Farragut, David Glasgow; Foote, Andrew Hull; Fort Donelson, Battle of; Fort Fisher Campaign; Fort Henry, Battle of; Fort Pickens, Florida; Fort Sumter, Union Attacks on; Fox, Gustavus Vasa; Gulf Blockading Squadron; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Hatteras Inlet, Union Assault on; Ironclad Board, U.S. Navy; Ironclads, Union; Lenthall, John; Lincoln, Abraham; Marine Corps, U.S.; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Mobile Bay, Battle of; Monitor, USS; Naval Academy, United States; Naval Efficiency Board; Naval Ordnance; Navy, CSA; New Ironsides, USS; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Passaic-Class Monitors; Porter, David Dixon; Port Royal Sound, Battle of; Ranks, Union and Confederate Navies; Red River Campaign; Riverine Warfare; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Strategy, Union Naval; Timberclads; Tinclads; Trent Affair; Vicksburg Campaign; Virginia, CSS; Welles, Gideon; West Gulf Blockading Squadron; Wilkes, Charles

References Anderson, Bern. By Sea and by River: The Naval History of the Civil War. New York: Knopf, 1962. Canney, Donald L. Lincoln’s Navy: The Ships, Men and Organization, 1861–65. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998. Musicant, Ivan. Divided Waters: The Naval History of the Civil War. New York: Â�HarperÂ�Collins, 1995. Niven, John. Gideon Welles, Lincoln’s Secretary of the Navy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973. Porter, David Dixon. The Naval History of the Civil War. 1886; reprint, New York: Dover, 1998. Roberts, William H. Civil War Ironclads: The U.S. Navy and Industrial Mobilization. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Nelson, William Birth Date: September 27, 1824 Death Date: September 29, 1862 U.S. Navy and U.S. Army officer. Born in Maysville, Kentucky, on September 27, 1824, William Nelson attended Norwich University in Vermont for two years

466 |â•‡ Nelson, William

before receiving a midshipman’s warrant on January 28, 1840. He was promoted to passed midshipman on July 11, 1846, and saw action in the Mexican-American War (1846–1848). Nelson was promoted to master on September 19, 1854, and to lieutenant on April 18, 1855. Because he was from a politically prominent family allied with President Abraham Lincoln in the key border state of Kentucky, Nelson accepted a call from Lincoln to recruit Kentuckians for the U.S. Army in April 1861. Detailed to the army, Nelson was commissioned a brigadier general of volunteers on September 16, 1861. Nelson saw action in the Battle of Ivy Mountain, Kentucky. Assigned to Major General Don C. Buell’s Army of the Ohio, he commanded Buell’s 4th Division in the Battle of Shiloh on April 7, 1862, and took part in subsequent Union operations against Corinth, Mississippi, and Chattanooga, Tennessee. On July 16, 1862, Nelson was promoted to lieutenant commander in the navy; a day later, July 17, he was promoted to major general of volunteers in the army. Nelson was one of three U.S. Navy officers to be detailed to the U.S. Army during the war—the others being Samuel P. Carter and Henry H. Lockwood—but he was the only one of the three to achieve the rank of major general. Nelson opposed Confederate general Braxton Bragg in the latter’s Kentucky Campaign. In his only independent action, Nelson was outmaneuvered and defeated by Confederate major general E. Kirby Smith in the Battle of Richmond, Kentucky, on August 30, 1862, when he was also wounded. Withdrawing to Louisville, Nelson strongly criticized a regular army officer, Brigadier General Jefferson C. Davis, who had been sent to assist him and whom he removed from command. A month later, on September 29, an angry Davis confronted Nelson in a hotel in Louisville and demanded an apology. When none was forthcoming, Davis crumpled a visiting card and threw it in Nelson’s face. Nelson then slapped Davis with the back of his hand and left the room. Davis borrowed a pistol from a friend, chased after Nelson, and called his name. When Nelson turned, Davis shot him dead. Although the defenseless Nelson had been murdered in cold blood at close range, Buell ruled it an affair of honor. Davis was never brought to trial and indeed was soon freed and returned to active service. Spencer C. Tucker See also Carter, Samuel Powhatan; Lincoln, Abraham; Lockwood, Henry Hayes


Neosho and Osage, USSâ•‡ | 467

Neosho and Osage, USS Single-turret U.S. Navy monitors with shallow draft designed for riverine operations. Designed by James B. Eads and the only stern-wheel monitors, the two Neosho-class ships had wooden hulls and were of “turretback” design. The Union Marine Iron Works at Carondelet, Missouri, constructed both monitors. The Neosho was laid down on February 18, 1863, and commissioned on May 13. The Osage was laid down on January 13, 1863, and commissioned on July 10. The Neosho-class monitors were 523 tons burden, 180 feet in overall length, and 45 feet in beam, and they had a draft of only 4 feet, 6 inches. They had a single paddle wheel about 18 feet in diameter at the stern, with the turret far forward so as to minimize the obstacle posed by the stern wheel to the guns’ arc of fire. Top speed for the two was 7.5 knots. They had crew complements of 100 men. The ships had 6 inches of armor on their turrets, 2.5 inches on the sides, and 1.25 inches on the deck. Armament consisted of two XI-inch Dahlgren smoothbore guns. In 1864 each also had one 12-pounder Dahlgren boat howitzer. Along with USS Chillicothe, the two Neosho-class ships were the smallest and slightest draft monitors of the war and proved highly effective in river operations. The Neosho took part in the Red River Expedition of March–May 1864, and attacked a Confederate shore battery near Simmesport, Louisiana, on June 8, 1864. It operated in the Cumberland River in December 1864 and was decommissioned on July 3, 1865. While laid up it was renamed first the Vixen and then the Osceola. It was sold in 1873. The Osage took part in operations up the Black and Ouachita rivers in Louisiana in March 1864, and then participated in the Red River Campaign. In one of the more unusual engagements of the war, on April 12 at Blair’s Landing, the Osage, which was lashed to the steamer Black Hawk, grounded. As the Union seamen worked to free the ship, lookouts spotted troops and artillery pieces several miles away in a wood. With a spyglass from atop the pilothouse of the Osage, its captain, Lieutenant Commander Thomas O. Selfridge Jr., identified the troops as Confederates and ordered the gunboat Lexington to move downriver and open an enfilading fire. Nonetheless, the Confederate infantry advanced to the river and opened up with small arms. The Osage responded with grape and canister, and finally with shrapnel and fuses cut to only one second. In the exchange, the Union ships were riddled with bullets. Selfridge later counted 50 bullet holes in the Osage’s pilothouse alone. The fight lasted about an hour and a half, until the Confederates withdrew. Reportedly the Confederates sustained some 300 casualties and the Union side but 7 wounded. Among the Confederate dead was cavalry Brigadier General Thomas Green, an exceptionally able field commander who nonetheless had led the impetuous advance.

468 |â•‡ Neuse, CSS

The Osage grounded in June 1864 and had to undergo repairs. Sunk by a Confederate torpedo (mine) in the Blakely River, Alabama, near Mobile on March 28, 1865, it was subsequently raised and sold in November 1867. In civilian service thereafter, it may have been sunk in Sodo Lake near Shreveport, Louisiana, in 1870. Gary D. Joiner and Spencer C. Tucker See also Black Hawk, USS; Cumberland River; Eads, James Buchanan; Fort Hindman, Battle of; Ironclads, Union; Lexington, USS; Mobile Bay, Battle of; Red River Campaign; Riverine Warfare; Selfridge, Thomas Oliver, Jr.; Timberclads; Tinclads; Torpedoes

References Canney, Donald L. The Old Steam Navy. 2 vols. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1990, 1993. Johnson, Ludwell H. Red River Campaign: Politics & Cotton in the Civil War. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1993. Joiner, Gary D. Mr. Lincoln’s Brown Water Navy: The Mississippi Squadron. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007. Selfridge, Thomas O., Jr., “The Navy in the Red River.” In Battles and Leaders of the Civil War: Being for the Most Part Contributions by Union and Confederate Officers, 4 vols., edited by Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence Clough Buel, 4:362–366. 1883; reprint, Secaucus, NJ: Castle, n.d. Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. II, Vol. 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1921.

Neuse, CSS Begun in October 1862, the Neuse was an Albemarle-class ironclad, 158 feet long and 34 feet wide, with an 8-foot draft. The casemate was armored with 4-inch iron plating and housed two 6.4-inch Brooke rifles. The hull, constructed at Whitehall, North Carolina, was sent downriver to Kinston, North Carolina, for completion and outfitting in the late spring of 1863. Because of the difficulty in procuring transportation for the iron plating, the project fell behind schedule. In February 1864 Major General Robert F. Hoke detailed carpenters and mechanics to assist with the project, and provided men to complete the crew. Command of the vessel was transferred from Lieutenant William Sharp to Lieutenant Benjamin P. Loyall. On April 22, 1864, Hoke requested that the Neuse assist in an attempt to recapture New Bern, North Carolina. In the Neuse River, the ironclad grounded and could not be freed. The river rose in mid-May, however, and the Neuse returned to its moorings. In August 1864 command of the vessel was transferred from Loyall to Captain Joseph Price.

New Bern, North Carolina, Capture ofâ•‡ | 469

Defeated in the Battle of Wyse Fork (March 8–10, 1865), General Braxton Bragg ordered Confederate troops to evacuate Kinston, North Carolina. To cover the Confederates’ retreat and prevent the ironclad from falling into Union hands, Price and his crew shelled the advancing Union troops on March 12, 1865, and then scuttled the Neuse. Andrew Duppstadt See also Brooke Guns; Ironclads, Confederate; Loyall, Benjamin Pollard; Price, Joseph; Sharp, William

References Bright, Leslie S., William H. Rowland, and James C. Bardon. CSS Neuse: A Question of Iron and Time. Raleigh: North Carolina Division of Archives and History, 1981. Campbell, R. Thomas. Storm over Carolina: The Confederate Navy’s Struggle for Eastern North Carolina. Nashville: Cumberland House, 2005. Still, William N., Jr. Iron Afloat: The Story of the Confederate Armorclads. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1985.

New Bern, North Carolina, Capture of Event Date: March 14, 1862 Union forces captured New Bern, North Carolina, on March 14, 1862. New Bern is located in the eastern part of the state, some 87 miles northeast of Wilmington on the Neuse River. Following the Union capture of Roanoke Island, North Carolina, in February 1862, Confederates in New Bern braced for a Union attack. Brigadier General Lawrence O’Bryan Branch had command of 4,000 largely untested troops, who occupied a defensive line about 6 miles south of New Bern on the Neuse. Fort Thompson, mounting 13 guns, anchored the left of the Confederate line on the Neuse River. Confederate engineers believed an attack on New Bern would come by water, so 10 of the fort’s guns faced the river, while only 3 covered the land approaches. From Fort Thompson, a line of entrenchments stretched westward for about a mile to the Atlantic and North Carolina Railroad line. Because of a shortage of manpower, rather than continue these fortifications across the railroad tracks toward Brice’s Creek, Branch positioned his troops on the right of his line, 150 yards behind an arm of Brice’s Creek. This placement led to a gap of 150 yards in the Confederate line along the railroad at Wood’s Brickyard. On March 11, 1862, Union brigadier general Ambrose Burnside began the assault on New Bern. His 11,000-man force boarded ships at Roanoke Island, then rendezvoused with U.S. Navy warships off Hatteras. The expeditionary force entered the Neuse River early in the afternoon of March 12 and anchored near the mouth of Slocum Creek that night.

470 |â•‡ New Bern, North Carolina, Capture of

At dawn the next morning, Union gunboats bombarded the North Carolina shore in preparation for the landing. The shelling was unnecessary, as there were no Confederate troops in the area. The Union soldiers landed unimpeded. After coming ashore near Slocum Creek, Burnside’s troops began their march to New Bern, 17 miles distant, but heavy rains that day made the journey slow and difficult. Union troops made camp near the Fort Thompson line on the night of March 13. At 7:00 a.m. on March 14, Burnside’s men advanced in three columns toward the Confederate positions. Brigadier General Jesse Reno commanded the Union troops to the left of the railroad, while Brigadier General John G. Foster’s brigade advanced on the right between the railroad and the Neuse River. Brigadier General John Parke’s brigade was held in reserve along the railroad, positioned to support either Reno or Foster. Foster’s command made first contact with the Confederates, immediately encountering devastating Confederate musket and artillery fire, including the three land-sited guns at Fort Thompson. A number of shells from the Union gunboats, firing in support of the attack, also landed within the Union lines, although Foster was able to get word to the gunboats and have them cease fire. He brought up his two reserve regiments to continue the attack on the Confederate position but was unable to break the Confederate line. On the Union left, Reno discovered the 150-yard gap in the Confederate line and prepared to attack it. The only Confederate troops guarding this break in Branch’s line were local militiamen who had been in service for only two weeks and were armed with only shotguns or hunting rifles. Reno personally led the charge of his men across the railroad against the militia, which soon fled in panic. But as Reno attempted to bring up more men to exploit the breach in the Confederate line, Branch sent reinforcements to seal it. Following heated action, Reno was forced to pull back, and the Confederate line stabilized. Shortly after 11:00 a.m., Parke ordered his men forward against the Confederate center. Breaching the line, Parke’s men turned right and struck the Confederate troops occupying the breastworks between the railroad and Fort Thompson. Seeing the enemy behind their breastworks, the Confederate soldiers gave way. Branch then ordered a general retirement. The Confederates fled across the Trent River Bridge, which was destroyed after the last of them had crossed it. Later that afternoon, Burnside’s men crossed the river and occupied New Bern. The capture of New Bern cost the Union 440 casualties. Confederate losses were 578. Fearful that Burnside’s army would sweep across North Carolina and divide the upper Confederacy, Confederate officials dispatched additional troops to the area. James Scythes See also Amphibious Warfare; Blockade Board; Blockade of the Confederacy; New Bern, North Carolina, Confederate Raid on; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Riverine Warfare; Roanoke Island, North Carolina, Union Capture of

New Bern, North Carolina, Confederate Raid onâ•‡ | 471

References Barrett, John G. The Civil War in North Carolina. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1963. Chaitin, Peter M., and the Editors of Time-Life Books. The Coastal War: Chesapeake Bay to Rio Grande. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1984.

New Bern, North Carolina, Confederate Raid on Start Date: February 1, 1864 End Date: February 2, 1864 New Bern, North Carolina, strategically sited on the Neuse River in North Carolina, had been captured by Union forces in March 1862. Not until January 1864 was Confederate Army of Northern Virginia commander General Robert E. Lee in position to propose a plan, which was duly approved by President Jefferson Davis, to retake New Bern, which was held by Union troops under Brigadier General Innis N. Palmer. For the operation, Lee detached 13,000 men under the command of Major General George E. Pickett. The men were on their way south on January 30, 1864. The Confederate plan of attack, developed by Pickett’s subordinate, Brigadier General Robert F. Hoke, called for a coordinated attack with the Confederates converging on New Bern from three different directions. Brigadier General Seth M. Barton would move south of the Trent River and advance on New Bern from the southwest with most of 3 infantry brigades, 600 cavalry, and 14 artillery pieces. At the same time, Colonel James Dearing would strike from the northeast with 3 infantry regiments, 300 cavalry, and 3 guns to attack Fort Anderson, directly across the Neuse from New Bern. The third column, under Hoke with Pickett accompanying it, would consist of Hoke’s own division. It would strike from the northwest via Batchelder’s Creek. There was also a fourth, naval, column. Confederate Navy commander John Taylor Wood would lead a daring night attack on the Union side-wheeler steam gunboat Underwriter, anchored in the Neuse near New Bern, to prevent it from aiding Union forces ashore. Toward this end the Confederates shipped a dozen small cutters by rail from Petersburg, Virginia, to Kinston, North Carolina, where they were started downriver. The Confederate attack began well. Hoke was able to cross Batchelder’s Creek and repulse Union attacks against him, while Barton captured Union outposts below the town. Meanwhile, the Confederate water attack achieved success. The 14 Confederate boats carrying 300 men in them were not discovered until about 2:00 a.m. on February 2, when they were only 100 yards from the Underwriter. The attackers quickly boarded and overpowered the Union crew. Acting Master

472 |â•‡ New Ironsides, USS

Jacob Westervelt, the Underwriter’s captain, was among those killed in the fight. Because the Union gunboat did not have steam up, Wood was thus unable to move it and soon found himself under heavy fire from Union shore batteries. Wood then ordered the ship scuttled. At this point, however, the Confederate plans fell apart. Both Barton and Dearing found the Union defensive works too strong and failed to attack. With two of his three land prongs now stalled, Pickett withdrew Hoke’s division, marking the end of the battle. Sinking the Underwriter was the sole Confederate accomplishment of the battle. Casualties were light on both sides. Pickett estimated Union losses at about 100 men and Confederate casualties at half that figure. Pickett bears major responsibility for the failure of the attack, for the desired coordination did not materialize. Pickett then returned to Virginia. Hoke continued in command, and he then moved against Plymouth, North Carolina. Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Davis, Jefferson Finis; Loyall, Benjamin Pollard; New Bern, North Carolina, Capture of; Riverine Warfare; Underwriter, USS, Confederate Expedition against; Wood, John Taylor

References Barrett, John G. The Civil War in North Carolina. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1963. Gordon, Leslie J. General George E. Pickett in Life and Legend. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.

New Ironsides, USS The New Ironsides was one of three experimental ironclads (the others being the Galena and Monitor) ordered by the U.S. Navy in 1861 in response to the threat posed by the U.S. Navy steam frigate Merrimack, which was undergoing conversion by the Confederates into the ironclad Virginia at the Norfolk (Gosport) Navy Yard. The New Ironsides was not as experimental as the Monitor, but it was actually a more successful ship type than either the Monitor or the other experimental ironclad, the Galena. Designed by Barnabas Bartol for the firm of Merrick and Sons, the New Ironsides was laid down in November 1861, launched in May 1862, and commissioned on August 21, 1862. Conventional in appearance, the ship was an armored, broadside vessel closely patterned after the French ironclad Gloire. The New Ironsides was 230 feet between perpendiculars, of which 170 feet was armored in a 4.5-inchthick iron belt. It had a beam of 56 feet and a draft of 15 feet, 8 inches, and displaced 3,500 tons. The ship also boasted an iron ram.

New Ironsides, USSâ•‡ | 473

The U.S. Navy ironclad New Ironsides in action off Charleston, South Carolina. One of three experimental ironclads ordered by the navy early in the war, the “Guardian of the Blockade,” as it was known, was by far the most powerful of the three and, many would contend, the most successful ironclad of the entire war. (Library of Congress)

Whereas the little Monitor mounted only 2 XI-inch Dahlgrens, the New Ironsides had a formidable battery of 14 XI-inch Dahlgren smoothbores and 2 8-inch (150-pounder) Parrott rifles mounted in broadsides in special iron carriages. Capable of 10 times the fire of the single-turreted monitors, the New Ironsides was in fact the most powerful warship of the U.S. Navy in the Civil War. The ship was slow—only 7 knots instead of the design-specified 10 knots—but this was a consequence of its bulky hull, necessary to ensure shallow draft, a prerequisite for coastal operations. It was far superior to the Monitor and its successors in seaworthiness, crew accommodations, armament, and even in armor (the New Ironsides utilized superior solid plate). In 16 months of service with the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron off Charleston, South Carolina, this “Guardian of the Blockade,” as the New Ironsides came to be known, proved an effective deterrent to Confederate ironclad attacks against the wooden Union blockading fleet. Its service there was unmatched by any other Union warship. Always the primary target for return fire during Union bombardments of Confederate shore positions, the New Ironsides came off with only minor damage, while the monitors often suffered severely and even fatally. During the Union bombardment of April 7, 1862, the ship was hit 50 times but emerged largely undamaged. Slightly damaged in an attack by the Confederate David torpedo boat on October 5, 1863, the New Ironsides was repaired and returned to service. It also participated in the two Union attacks on Fort Fisher, in December 1864 and January 1865. Following its wartime service, the New Ironsides was in ordinary at Philadelphia when it succumbed to a fire from an untended, improvised bucket coal stove on December 16, 1866. It was an inglorious end for a superb warship. Spencer C. Tucker

474 |â•‡ New Ironsides, USS, Attack on by CSS David See also Blockade of the Confederacy; Blockade-Runners; Charleston, South Carolina, Du Pont’s Attack on; Dahlgren Guns; Davids, CSS; Fort Fisher Campaign; Galena, USS; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Ironclads, Union; Monitor, USS; Monitor Mania; New Ironsides, USS, Attack on by CSS David; Norfolk Navy Yard; Parrott Guns; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Spar Torpedo; Torpedoes; Virginia, CSS

References Roberts, William H. USS New Ironsides in the Civil War. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1999. Silverstone, Paul H. Civil War Navies, 1855–1883. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2001. Tucker, Spencer C. A Naval History of the Civil War. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

New Ironsides, USS, Attack on by CSS David Event Date: October 5, 1863 Confederate General Pierre G. T. Beauregard, commanding at Charleston, sought to raise the Union naval blockade of that important seaport. Toward that end he supported the construction of small vessels that would mount spar torpedoes (explosive charges attached to the end of a long pole at the bow) with which to attack the Union blockading warships. Such craft were designed to operate very low in the water. Encouraged by Beauregard, Confederate army and navy personnel at Charleston carried out a number of experiments with the torpedo boats. The most powerful Union ship off Charleston was easily the ironclad New Ironsides, and it became the principal Confederate target. On the night of August 21, 1863, the 150-foot-long Confederate vessel Torch attacked the New Ironsides, but the blast did little damage. The Confederates also built a half dozen much smaller cigar-shaped vessels, measuring 48 feet, 6 inches, in length, that were specifically designed for such operations. The prototype of these vessels was named the David. Although resembling a submarine because they would take in water and ride awash in the approach to the target, the Davids were strictly surface vessels propelled by a steam engine. Their large open hatch, necessary to provide air for the steam engine, invited disaster through swamping. Intended for a crew of four, each David mounted a spar torpedo containing 60 pounds of powder inside a copper casing. On the night of October 5, 1863, the David, commanded by Lieutenant William T. Glassell, set out from Charleston for the New Ironsides. In addition to Glassell, the crew consisted of James H. Tomb, acting first assistant engineer; Walker Cannon, pilot; and James Sullivan, second fireman. The David proceeded out the main ship channel and passed a number of Union ships before arriving

New Ironsides, USS, Attack on by CSS Davidâ•‡ | 475

near the New Ironsides at 8:30 p.m. There the crew waited a half hour for the flood tide. At 9:00 p.m., with conditions favorable and all members of the crew agreeing to an attack, the David ran for the Union ironclad. It reached to within 50 yards of the New Ironsides before being discovered. Hailed from the Union ship, Glassell responded by personally firing a blast from a double-barreled shotgun. Some two minutes later, the David struck the ironclad at its stern quarter at full speed and exploded its torpedo some 6.5 feet under water. Although crewmen of the New Ironsides were now firing small arms at the David, these did no damage. The explosion of the spar torpedo damaged the Union ironclad, the New Ironsides, but did not sink it. Although the crew of the David had immediately reversed engine, the shock of the blast had thrown the iron ballast among the machinery, causing it to malfunction. At the same time, the wave of water created by the blast washed into the torpedo boat and put out the fire in its steam engine. Believing that the David was sinking, Glassell and two others abandoned ship; one of them subsequently returned to the David, where Engineer Tomb succeeded in restarting its furnace. The David then made good its escape back up the ship channel, despite having come under steady small-arms fire, passing within three feet of one Union monitor, and having two 11-inch shells fired against it by the New Ironsides. Glassell and Sullivan, who both had life preservers, had been unable to regain the David and were taken aboard the blockading Union ships as prisoners of war. The attack mortally wounded one man in the New Ironsides, but his wound came from the shotgun blast rather than from the explosion of the spar torpedo. Captain Stephen C. Rowan of the New Ironsides reported to Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren, commander of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron: “The ship is very seriously injured, and ought to be sent home for repairs as soon as it is possible to spare her services here.” The New Ironsides was indeed repaired and then returned to blockade duties off Charleston. Meanwhile, Dahlgren ordered a number of preventive measures to protect against future Confederate spar-torpedo attacks, including picket duty by monitors, tugs, and boats; netting; and boat howitzers kept loaded with canister. Spencer C. Tucker See also Blockade of the Confederacy; Dahlgren, John Adolph Bernard; Davids, CSS; Glassell, William T.; New Ironsides, USS; Rowan, Stephen Clegg; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Spar Torpedo; Submarines; Torpedoes


476 |â•‡ New Orleans, Louisiana

New Orleans, Louisiana Largest and wealthiest city in the Confederacy at the time of the Civil War and the South’s principal port. Founded by the French in 1718, New Orleans sits along the Mississippi River about 105 miles north of the Gulf Coast. The population of the city was estimated at 165,000 in 1860. The United States officially took possession of the strategic city in 1803 as part of the Louisiana Purchase. Much of New Orleans borders the Mississippi River; immediately to the north is Lake Pontchartrain. Many areas of the city are at sea level or slightly below sea level, making it prone to flooding in severe storms and hurricanes. Much of the Atlantic slave trade was based at New Orleans, and its ports were used to transport goods to and from interior locations all along the Mississippi and its many tributaries. The principal commodities handled were cotton, sugar, and tobacco. Indeed, by the mid-1850s, 50 percent of all cotton grown in the United States passed through New Orleans. Because of its strategic location astride the Mississippi and its proximity to the Gulf Coast, Union leaders early in the war were determined that they would seize the city and blockade its ports. This would seriously hamper the Confederacy both militarily and economically and would allow the Union troops to control oceanbound traffic on the lower Mississippi River, a first step toward controlling the entire river. When realized, this would cut off the West from the remainder of the Confederacy and allow access to the Gulf for farm goods from the Midwest, binding that area firmly to the war effort. When the war began in 1861, New Orleans became a hub of military and civilian activity. The city furnished troops, supplies, and armaments for the Confederacy. It also provided important commanders, including P. G. T. Beauregard and Braxton Bragg, among others. The city was also home to a significant naval ordnance depot, and its shipbuilding facilities produced several warships, including an early ironclad and two experimental submarines. In December 1861, U.S. secretary of the navy Gideon Welles appointed Captain David G. Farragut commander of the West Gulf Blockading Squadron and instructed him to seize New Orleans at the earliest opportunity. Taking several months to cobble together a squadron large enough for the task, Farragut began his operations up the Mississippi in mid-April, working with some 13,500 troops under Major General Benjamin F. Butler. By April 25, New Orleans had fallen to Union forces. On May 1, Butler assumed official administrative control over the vanquished city. New Orleans remained in Union hands for the duration of the conflict. The fall of New Orleans was a crippling blow to the Confederacy. Besides the obvious economic and military implications of losing its largest and most important city, the Union capture of New Orleans was a major blow to the Confederacy’s efforts to secure diplomatic recognition abroad. Not being able to hold New

New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture ofâ•‡ | 477

Orleans made it appear far more likely that the South would lose the war. The loss of the city was also a major blow to Southern morale. Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr. See also Anaconda Strategy; Blockade of the Confederacy; Farragut, David Glasgow; Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s Run Past; Gulf of Mexico; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; Riverine Warfare; Strategy, Union Naval; Welles, Gideon; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Duffy, James P. Lincoln’s Admiral: The Civil War Campaigns of David Farragut. New York: Wiley, 1997. Garvey, Joan B., and Mary Lou Widmer. Beautiful Crescent: A History of New Orleans. New Orleans: Garmer, 1994.

New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of Start Date: April 25, 1862 End Date: April 29, 1862 On April 24, 1862, the ships of Flag Officer David G. Farragut’s West Gulf Blockading Squadron successfully passed Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip on the lower Mississippi and engaged and defeated the Confederate warships in the river. Farragut then ordered a brief pause to bury his dead and carry out minor repairs to his ships. At 11:00 a.m. on August 25, Farragut sent word to U.S. Army major general Benjamin Butler to land his troops, leaving behind the gunboats Kineo and Wissahickon at Quarantine Station to provide support. He then ordered the squadron to proceed to New Orleans. Following a brief engagement with that city’s last line of defense, a 40-gun Confederate shore battery at Chalmatte some four miles below New Orleans, the ships arrived at the Crescent City just after noon on April 25 and anchored near the customhouse. With the river up and near the top of the levee, the guns of the ships in the squadron could easily be brought to bear on the city. New Orleans was in chaos; taunting crowds lined the waterfront to protest events. Farragut dispatched Captain Theodorus Bailey and an aide, Lieutenant George H. Perkins, to meet with the city’s leaders and demand that they surrender New Orleans and that the U.S. flag be raised over the customhouse, mint, and post office. The city fathers and Confederate major general Mansfield Lovell, who had charge of the New Orleans defenses, refused. Lovell then announced that he and his remaining troops would evacuate the city. Evidently he and the city fathers hoped that this move would prevent Farragut from bombarding New Orleans. That same day, on the Union approach, the Confederates burned their unfinished ironclad Mississippi. Launched only on April 19, it had been intended to carry 20 guns, but its ordnance was never mounted and the engines had yet to be assembled.

478 |â•‡ New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of

New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture ofâ•‡ | 479

On the morning of April 26, Bailey returned ashore to meet with the city leaders. Again they refused his demand for surrender; but with the city poorly provisioned and indefensible, they said they would not resist a Union takeover. At noon on April 29, 200 U.S. marines and several naval officers went ashore and assumed official possession, raising the U.S. flag over the customhouse. General Butler and his troops reached the city on May 1. Butler’s subsequent order to execute a man who had taken down a U.S. flag and his so-called Woman Order, which proclaimed that any woman who failed to show proper respect to U.S. soldiers would be treated as a common prostitute, led to his being known by the locals as “Beast Butler.” The stretch of river to the south had already fallen to Union forces. With Fort Jackson now cut off, on April 25 Commander David D. Porter sent Lieutenant Commander John Guest under flag of truce to demand that Brigadier General Johnson K. Duncan surrender both that fort and naval vessels in the vicinity, including CSS Louisiana. Duncan refused, whereupon Porter commenced a mortar bombardment. Although neither Confederate fort had been seriously damaged in the lengthy earlier bombardment, by now the defenders had enough and early on April 28 many deserted. Accepting reality, later that same day Duncan came aboard the Harriet Lane to surrender both forts. As this was taking place, Flag Officer John K. Mitchell, senior Confederate naval commander on the river, set fire to the Louisiana and cut it free from its moorings to drift downriver, but the ironclad blew up before it reached the Union ships. Duncan assured Porter that the ironclad was not under his command and hence not bound by his surrender order. Careful planning, effective leadership, and bold execution had given Farragut a great victory. As a consequence, Farragut became an immediate hero in the North. Certainly, the loss of its largest and most important seaport was a heavy blow to the Confederacy. Vicksburg and Port Hudson were now the only remaining Mississippi River Confederate strongholds and, with the fall of New Orleans, their capture was only a matter of time. The timing of the Union attack was also propitious; it probably prevented the Confederate ironclads Louisiana and Mississippi from defeating the Union assault and dominating the mighty river for six months or more. Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Bailey, Theodorus; Farragut, David Glasgow; Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s Run Past; Harriet Lane, USS; Louisiana, CSS; Mississippi, CSS; Mississippi River; Mitchell, John Kirkwood; New Orleans, Louisiana; Porter, David Dixon; Riverine Warfare; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Porter, David Dixon. The Naval History of the Civil War. 1886; reprint, New York: Dover, 1998. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 18. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1904.

480 |â•‡ Newport News,Virginia

Newport News, Virginia City in southeastern Virginia situated at the southeastern end of the peninsula formed by the York and James rivers, near where they empty into the Chesapeake Bay. Newport News sits at the nexus of Hampton Roads; on the opposite side (the southern side of Hampton Roads), the Elizabeth and Nansemond rivers flow into the Chesapeake Bay. Located upstream on the Elizabeth River were the Norfolk (Gosport) Navy Yard as well as Norfolk and Portsmouth. Northeast of Newport News was Fort Monroe. About 75 miles southeast of Richmond, Newport News was a key strategic location for both Union and Confederate forces during the Civil War. In the 19th century, most of the land comprising the modern-day city was known as Warwick County, with only a small hamlet on the Chesapeake Bay known as Newport News Point. With its close proximity to the Confederate capital, Newport News saw extensive troop movements and several engagements during the war’s early stages. On May 21, 1861, Brigadier General Benjamin Butler occupied Fort Monroe and established the headquarters of the Department of Virginia there to forestall any Confederate attempt to take the peninsula or Newport News. A week later, Union forces began constructing an encampment at Newport News known as Camp Butler. The June 10, 1861, Battle of Big Bethel, considered by historians to be the Civil War’s first real engagement, was fought just 10 miles to the northeast in Elizabeth City County (now the city of Hampton). The Confederates attempted to take Newport News several times but failed. Further Confederate attempts to seize Newport News had to be abandoned because Union ships would have pounded their positions, making an occupation untenable. The Battle of Hampton Roads on March 8–9, 1862—that of March 9 between the ironclads USS Monitor and CSS Virginia—occurred off Newport News Point. The area also saw significant activity during the March–August 1862 Peninsula Campaign, which was Major General George B. McClellan’s ultimately unsuccessful attempt to capture Richmond from the east. The spot also saw much activity during the June 15, 1864–April 3, 1865, Petersburg Campaign during which it served primarily as a supply and staging area for Union forces. Throughout the war, the Union maintained control of Newport News and its environs. Today, Newport News is home to two major Civil War attractions, the historic Endview Plantation and USS Monitor Center at the Mariners’ Museum. Sean M. Heuvel and Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr. See also City Point, Virginia; Fort Monroe, Virginia; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Hampton Roads, Virginia; James River; James River Squadron, CSA; Monitor, USS; Norfolk Navy Yard; Richmond, Virginia; Virginia, CSS

References Jester, Annie L. Newport News, Virginia 1607–1960. Richmond, VA: Whittet and Shepperson, 1961.

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Quarstein, John V., and Parke S. Rouse Jr. Newport News: A Centennial History. Newport News, VA: City of Newport News, 1996.

Nicholson, William Carmichael Birth Date: 1800 Death Date: July 25, 1872 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Maryland in 1800, William Carmichael Nicholson was the son of John Nicholson, a captain in the Continental Navy during the Revolutionary War. Nicholson received a midshipman’s warrant on June 18, 1812. Following service in the War of 1812, he was promoted to lieutenant on March 3, 1821; to commander on September 8, 1841; and to captain on August 22, 1855. At the beginning of 1861, Nicholson had been in the navy for 48 years: some 26 years of sea service, 7 years in assignments ashore, and 14 years awaiting orders in a navy with too many officers for available assignments. Serving as governor of the Naval Asylum in Philadelphia at the beginning of the Civil War, in June 1861 Nicholson assumed command of the steam frigate Roanoke and served off Charleston, South Carolina, in the Atlantic Blockading Squadron. When Captain Louis M. Goldsborough took command of the squadron in September, Nicholson and Captain Joseph B. Hull were relieved because it was thought not proper that they serve under the more junior Goldsborough. Nicholson was placed on the retired list on December 21, 1861, but he continued on active duty in staff positions into 1865 and was promoted to commodore on the retired list on July 16, 1862. Nicholson also served on special duty in New York during 1865–1867. He died in Philadelphia on July 25, 1872. Spencer C. Tucker See also Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Charleston, South Carolina; Goldsborough, Louis Malesherbes; Hull, Joseph Bartine; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Philadelphia Naval Asylum; Roanoke, USS


Norfolk Navy Yard One of eight pre–Civil War U.S. Navy yards, located at Portsmouth, Virginia, across the Elizabeth River from Norfolk. Known as the Gosport Navy Yard until 1862, a

482 |â•‡ Norfolk Navy Yard

shipyard was first established there in the colonial period by Andrew Sprowle in 1767. The British burned the yard in 1779 during the Revolutionary War. Rebuilt, it was operated by the state of Virginia until 1794, when the federal government leased the facility with the commencement of the U.S. Navy that year. The federal government purchased the land outright on June 15, 1801. Strategically located about midway along the U.S. Atlantic coast, it was the largest of the pre–Civil War U.S. Navy yards. The Norfolk Navy Yard included machine shops and a granite dry dock. In early April 1861 there were 11 warships at the yard. These ranged from the former ship of the line Pennsylvania, at one point the largest sailing warship in the U.S. Navy, now a receiving ship, to the small dispatch brig Dolphin. Certainly the most powerful ship at the yard was the modern, powerful steam frigate Merrimack, in the yard to have its unreliable engines rebuilt. Concerned about the security of the yard as Virginia appeared to be headed toward secession, on April 11, 1861, U.S. secretary of the navy Gideon Welles ordered yard commandant Commodore Charles S. McCauley to prepare the Merrimack for sea “in as short a time as possible.” Welles also ordered 200 seamen and 20 firemen and coal heavers to Norfolk and appointed Commander James Alden to command the frigate and bring it to Philadelphia. He then sent chief engineer Benjamin F. Isherwood to Norfolk to reassemble the frigate’s steam engines. McCauley bumbled his instructions. A veteran of the War of 1812 who should have been retired years before, McCauley was intimidated by junior officers sympathetic to the South who urged him not to do anything that would violate Welles’s earlier instructions not to do anything that would further alienate the Virginia authorities. The junior officers claimed that preparing the Merrimack for sea might even bring an attack on the yard by Virginia militia. As a consequence, even though Isherwood was able to put the frigate’s engines back in working order, McCauley refused to allow it to depart. A furious Welles ordered Captain Hiram Paulding to the yard to replace McCauley. Paulding arrived back at Norfolk at 8:00 p.m. on April 20 following a quick trip to Washington, D.C., only to find that McCauley, believing the yard was about to be attacked, had ordered the scuttling of all of the ships there. Paulding then had no choice but to continue the work that had begun; Paulding was able to get off only two ships. Early on the morning of April 21, the screw sloop Pawnee got under way, towing the sailing sloop Cumberland. Once they were safely off, Paulding gave the signal to torch the yard and destroy its facilities. The work of destruction on April 21 was haphazard at best. Barrels of powder to destroy the dry dock failed to go off, and the Virginia troops who moved in immediately after the departure of the Union troops discovered that much of the facilities were intact, including virtually all the yard’s machinery, as well as castings, ammunition, and naval stores. Most of the ships could be raised and rebuilt. Some 4,000 shells could be recovered, as could small arms that were thrown into

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Destruction of the Norfolk,Virginia Navy Yard by U.S forces under Commodore Charles S. McCauley on April 20, 1861. The affair was poorly executed, and the Confederates were able to raise and rebuild a number of the scuttled ships. They also secured important facilities and many heavy guns and much ammunition. (Naval History and Heritage Command)

the water. The Merrimack’s 2,200 cartridges were in watertight tanks and could all be saved. The Union troops had managed to destroy only 8 guns, all 32-pounders. The Confederates secured from the Norfolk yard 1,195 cannon, including 52 IXinch Dahlgrens. Many of these were soon on their way to seacoast fortifications throughout the South. The Confederates also soon raised the Merrimack, which had burned only to the waterline before sinking, and began rebuilding it as the ironclad ram Virginia. On March 8, 1862, the Virginia sortied from the yard to attack Union ships in Hampton Roads and destroyed two powerful Union warships, the sloop Cumberland and the frigate Congress. The next day the Virginia engaged the newly arrived Union ironclad Monitor. That engagement ended in a draw. Union troops reoccupied the yard on May 9, 1862, during Major General George B. McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign. The Union retained control of the yard for the remainder of the war. The Norfolk Navy Yard is today among the most important in the United States. Dallace William Unger Jr. and Spencer C. Tucker See also Alden, James, Jr.; Boston Navy Yard; Brooklyn Navy Yard; Dahlgren Guns; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Hampton Roads, Virginia; Isherwood, Benjamin Franklin; Mare Island Navy Yard; McCauley, Charles Stewart; Monitor, USS; Newport News,

484 |â•‡ North Atlantic Blockading Squadron Virginia; Paulding, Hiram; Pawnee, USS; Pensacola Navy Yard; Philadelphia Navy Yard; Portsmouth Navy Yard; Receiving Ship; Virginia, CSS; Welles, Gideon

References Calore, Paul. Naval Campaigns of the Civil War. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2002. Fowler, William M., Jr. Under Two Flags: The American Navy in the Civil War. New York: Norton, 1990. Roberts, William H. Now for the Contest: Coastal and Oceanic Naval Operations in the Civil War. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

North Atlantic Blockading Squadron One of four Union Navy blockading squadrons formed by Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles early in the Civil War to cover the Confederate coastline. It was officially established in October 1861 when Welles divided the Atlantic Squadron into the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron and the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. It ran from Cape Charles, Virginia, to the border between North and South Carolina. The squadron’s first commander, Flag Officer Louis M. Goldsborough, faced a formidable task. Not only did he have a limited number of ships, but the geography of the southern coast made blockade activities difficult. The region’s many harbors, inlets, and rivers offered shelter to anyone wishing to avoid the blockade, and the shallow coastal waters and frequent periods of bad weather made cruising along the coast both difficult and dangerous. While the navy quickly established control over the Virginia coast, Goldsborough planned to deal with North Carolina by blocking a number of inlets and seizing some of the coastal towns and offshore islands. Attempts to block several inlets by sinking hulks in them failed, but operations to seize coastal towns and islands proved more successful. In mid-January 1862, a joint army-navy expedition captured Roanoke Island, North Carolina. By the end of March, Union forces had captured the important deep-water port of Beaufort as well as Elizabeth City, New Bern, and several other North Carolina towns. Only the port of Wilmington on the Cape Fear River remained open to Confederate ships. While the campaign in North Carolina was under way, the squadron also supported the army’s attempt to capture Richmond, Virginia, by advancing up the peninsula between the James and York rivers. The squadron’s most important task was protecting the transports supplying the army as well as the important anchorage at Hampton Roads, Virginia. Additionally, its heavy guns provided fire support for the troops ashore. Relations between Goldsborough and the army became strained over the course of the campaign, however, and on July 6, 1862, the Navy Department created a new command, the James River Flotilla, to work with the

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army. Goldsborough took that action as an official expression of displeasure with his performance and resigned. Acting Rear Admiral Samuel P. Lee assumed command of the squadron on September 4, 1862. By this time, the squadron was dividing its efforts between three missions: supporting the army, interrupting the Confederacy’s coastal and river trade, and blockading the South’s ocean ports. By the summer of 1862, the only port left open in the squadron’s area was Wilmington, North Carolina, and it was rapidly becoming the most important port in the Confederacy. The squadron had grown in size but still suffered from a lack of suitable ships. Many of the squadron’s ships were too big to work in shallow coastal waters. Others were in poor condition or inadequately armed. Worse still, many were simply too slow to catch the increasingly fast steamers purpose-built to run the blockade. Speed was paramount in catching the runners, and Lee tried to increase the speed of his ships by ordering them to land extra guns and limit the amount of provisions they carried. The blockade was also hampered by the demand for gunboats in Chesapeake Bay and the need to support the army’s scattered outposts in North Carolina. Lee repeatedly called for better ships and unsuccessfully argued that the army posts should be consolidated so he could use his ships elsewhere. Despite improvements, blockade-runners still made it into Wilmington. Between May 1863 and December 31, 1864, an estimated 261 steamers successfully made port there. In 1861, a runner had a 1 in 10 chance of being caught. The odds fell to 1 in 4 in 1863 but were still 1 in 3 in 1864 and 1 in 2 in 1865. Union officials realized that the only way to completely stop the flow of goods into Wilmington was to capture the port. Plans had been put forward as early as 1861, but the army and navy had always decided to use their limited number of troops and ships elsewhere. In the meantime, the Confederates erected a series of strong fortifications around Wilmington anchored on Fort Fisher at the mouth of the Cape Fear River. In the autumn of 1864, the army agreed to provide troops for an expedition but wanted an officer other than Lee in command. Therefore, Welles relieved Lee and replaced him with Rear Admiral David D. Porter on September 22. The first Union attempt to take Fort Fisher in late December failed, but a second assault in mid-January 1865 seized the fort. Union forces then reduced the other Confederate defenses and captured Wilmington on January 22, 1865. After the capture of Wilmington, the squadron continued supporting the army and patrolled the coast. Acting Rear Admiral William Radford assumed command on May 1, 1865. As the navy reorganized after the end of the war, the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron was merged with the Atlantic Squadron on July 25, 1865. Richard F. Kehrberg See also Amphibious Warfare; Anaconda Strategy; Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Blockade Board; Blockade of the Confederacy; Blockade-Runners; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Fort Fisher Campaign; Goldsborough, Louis Malesherbes; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Hampton Roads, Virginia; James River; Lee, Samuel Phillips; Navy, U.S.; New

486 |â•‡ North Atlantic Blockading Squadron Bern, North Carolina, Capture of; Norfolk Navy Yard; Porter, David Dixon; Radford, William; Riverine Warfare; Roanoke Island, North Carolina, Union Capture of; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Stone Fleets; Strategy, Union Naval; Welles, Gideon; Wilmington, North Carolina, Engagements at

References Browning, Robert M., Jr. From Cape Charles to Cape Fear: The North Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1993. Cornish, Dudley T. Lincoln’s Lee: The Life of Samuel Phillips Lee, United States Navy, 1812–1897. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1986. Laas, Virginia. “‘Sleepless Sentinels’: The North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, 1862– 1864.” Civil War History 31 (March 1985): 24–38.

O Officers and Seamen in the U.S. and Confederate Navies There is disagreement among sources regarding the number of personnel in the Union Navy. Historian Raimondo Luraghi gives a figure of 11,412 officers, sailors, and marines at the beginning of the war and 6,759 officers, 51,357 sailors, and 3,850 marines at its end. He also states that there were more than 84,000 Union enlistments in the navy in the course of the war, but historian Michael Bennett, who has done a thorough study of Union sailors in the war, places wartime enlistments at 118,044 men. The naval officer corps included not only deck officers but engineers, paymasters, and surgeons. The latter three categories were limited to the rank of lieutenant commander. In July 1861, as part of the expansion of the navy, Congress authorized the creation of a naval volunteer officer corps. Toward the end of the war, this included 2,060 line officers, 1,805 engineers, 370 paymasters, and 245 surgeons. With the dramatic increase in steam warships for the blockade, there was a sharp increase in the number of engineering corps officers. Fortunately for the Union Navy, only 22 engineering officers elected to join the Confederacy (a much smaller percentage than deck officers who went to the South). By the end of 1861 there were 404 engineer officers in the navy, but by the end of the war this had risen to 2,277 (474 regulars and 1,803 volunteers). At the beginning of 1861, many U.S. Navy officers (although few of its sailors) were from the South. Some 43 percent of the 1,563 officers of the U.S. Navy (1,338) and Marine Corps (225) were Southerners. By June 1861 about one-fifth of these had resigned, including 16 captains, 34 commanders, 76 lieutenants, 5 midshipmen, and 106 acting midshipmen. The total of resigned officers, 321 (299 navy and 22 marines), was less, however, than the number of native Southerners, 350 (283 navy and 67 marines), who remained loyal to the Union. Also, no Southern officer ever delivered his ship to the Confederacy. A total of 118,044 sailors served in the U.S. Navy during the war. According to Bennett, we know that Union sailors, at an average age of 26, were older than their army counterparts, the majority of whom on both sides were under 21. Most Union sailors were easterners. New York State and New York City provided the largest number (35,164), followed by Massachusetts (19,983) and Pennsylvania (14,037). The western states combined produced only 12,375 enlistments. Sailors also differed from soldiers in that they tended to be from the poor, working, urban classes.

487

488 |â•‡ Officers and Seamen in the U.S. and Confederate Navies

Only some 3 percent had made their living on farms before the war, whereas half of Union soldiers were from farms. Sailors also tended to be a rougher group of individuals and not as idealistic or as committed to the war effort as the soldiers. Whereas soldiers tended to join the service for patriotic or idealistic reasons, most U.S. natives who enlisted as seamen apparently were motivated more by the pragmatic reasons of (after 1862) avoiding the draft, regular pay, better food, and shelter. The navy also had larger percentages of foreign-born individuals and African Americans, including ex-slaves, most of whom joined for reasons of security. Whereas an estimated 75 percent of Union soldiers were U.S. natives, this was true of only 55 percent of sailors. Of the foreign-born who enlisted in the navy, the largest number (20 percent) came from Ireland, whereas the Irish formed only 7 percent of the Union Army. Ten percent came from Great Britain (only 2 percent of the Union Army). Despite an 1813 law prohibiting noncitizens from joining the navy, a great many foreigners served in both the U.S. and Confederate navies. It is impossible to tell from enlistment information just how many were naturalized American citizens. For some recent immigrants enlistment was prompted by a sense of adventure, but for most it was simple financial security for men who were essentially unskilled. Certainly, some men were attracted by the fact that they could fulfill their patriotic duty by being less likely to see combat than in the army. While the Union Army lost roughly 1 in every 15 recruits to disease, the navy lost only 1 in 40. Death rates in combat were 1 in 9 for the army, but only 1 in 65 for the navy. In raw numbers, the Union Army lost some 380,000 soldiers, while the navy sustained about 2,110 killed. African Americans constituted about 16 percent of U.S. Navy total strength during the war, or roughly 19,000 men. The navy attracted a number of African Americans away from the army both because of higher wages and of the expectation of more meaningful employment than the construction work performed by blacks in the Union Army. Also, unlike army units, ship crews were integrated. The navy offered equality in pay and benefits such as prize distributions, promotion, and better conditions. It did, however, restrict African American tasks aboard ship. Perhaps surprisingly, in contrast to the army, there appear to have been remarkably few racial incidents between white and black sailors. The Confederate Navy remained small, and Secretary of the Navy Stephen R. Mallory thus did not have U.S. secretary of the navy Gideon Welles’s problem of having to secure a great many additional officers. In April 1864, when it was quite possibly at peak strength, the navy counted 753 officers and 4,460 enlisted men. Almost all Confederate Navy line officers had served in the U.S. Navy. Mallory’s major officer problems were that he had too many senior officers and too few engineering officers. The South had much more difficulty securing seamen than did the North, however. Like much else of the prewar United States, shipbuilding and seafaring were principally located in the North, and relatively few Southerners were attracted to

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the sea. Also, because the South had only a small percentage of the North’s population, manpower was always in short supply, and army needs always took priority. Indeed, despite legislation passed by the Confederate Congress to allow men to transfer from the army to the navy, because of their own manpower needs army commanders allowed only a small number to do so. As with the U.S. Navy, a large number of foreigners served the Confederate cause at sea. Although it is only a small sample, historian John Kennington, who studied the muster rolls of 100 men transferred from the Army of Tennessee at Dalton, Georgia, to the Savannah Squadron on March 3, 1864, concluded that nearly 17 percent were of Irish birth or nationality, while 25 percent were English. The best-represented states were Kentucky and Tennessee, each with 18 percent. A large number of British citizens served in the commerce raiders. Thus, while its officers were native Southerners, the crew of the Alabama was essentially made up of foreigners, chiefly British citizens. The crew ultimately also included Dutch, French, Italian, and Spanish sailors. The Confederate cruisers also recruited some men from among seamen on the prizes they captured. Not surprisingly, free blacks also served in the Confederate Navy. Slaves could do so, but only at the pleasure of their masters. The number of African Americans was strictly regulated not to exceed 5 percent of a particular unit. Spencer C. Tucker See also African American Sailors; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Discipline, Naval; Food and Drink aboard Ship; Mallory, Stephen Russell; Marine Corps, CSA; Marine Corps, U.S.; Medicine, Naval; Naval Academy, Confederate; Naval Academy, United States; Ranks, Union and Confederate Navies; Shipboard Life; Welles, Gideon

References Bennett, Michael J. Union Jacks: Yankee Sailors in the Civil War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. Canney, Donald L. Lincoln’s Navy: The Ships, Men and Organization, 1861–65. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998. Ramold, Steven J. Slaves, Sailors, Citizens: African Americans in the Union Navy. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2002. Semmes, Raphael. Memoirs of Service Afloat: During the War between the States. 1869; reprint, Secaucus, NJ: Blue and Grey Press, 1987. Still, William N., Jr., ed. The Confederate Navy: The Ships, Men and Organization, 1861–65. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies A 30-volume publication authorized by an act of Congress on July 7, 1884. The Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies was compiled by the Office

490 |â•‡ Ohio River

of Naval War Records and includes the surviving official communications of both the Union and Confederate navy departments. On June 6, 1880, Congress had approved appropriations for The War of Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Secretary of the Navy William C. Whitney argued that the Civil War had revolutionized naval warfare; therefore, a similar work detailing naval operations during the conflict was imperative and would complement the army records. The multivolume publication is classified into three series. Series 1, the largest section, covers the naval operations on the coasts and inland waters. Series 2 focuses on the creation of both fleets, the conditions of the antebellum navy, naval prisoners, ship specifications, and prizes captured. Series 3 contains miscellaneous correspondence that does not otherwise fit into the themes of the first two. Although there is no evidence that any records had been altered before publication, critics have complained that certain unpopular entries were omitted. An effort was made to give equal attention to both the Union and Confederate navies. However, the Confederate naval archives were burned after the war, forcing the researchers to rely on personal collections. Despite these setbacks, this invaluable primary resource of naval operations during the Civil War was published in 1894. William E. Whyte III See also Navy, CSA; Navy, U.S.

References Merrill, James M. “Successors of Mahan: A Survey of Writings on American Naval History, 1914–1960.” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 50(1) (June, 1963): 79–99. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 1. Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1894.

Ohio River The largest tributary, by volume, of the Mississippi River. The Ohio River, which is 981 miles long, begins in Pittsburgh at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers. From there it flows south and west along the border of five states: West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois. It joins the Mississippi in the far southern portion of Illinois near Cairo. The Ohio River has 27 major tributaries. At the beginning of the Civil War, before West Virginia was created from the northwestern portion of Virginia and joined the Union, Virginia had bordered the Ohio River. The Ohio River is quite deep, ranging from about 27 feet from Pittsburgh to Cincinnati to a maximum depth of some 160 feet near Louisville, Kentucky, and then back to about 20 feet near Cairo, Illinois. Most of the Ohio River is navigable for large ships; the widest portion of the river is just west of Louisville, where it is normally about one mile from bank to

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bank. The only significant barrier on the entire river occurs at the Falls of the Ohio, near Louisville, where the Ohio drops about 26 feet over a two-mile stretch. Prior to the construction of locks and other features that mitigated this, ships could traverse the area, but that required expert piloting. The first lock was built in 1825. French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, was the first European to explore the river, in 1669. The Ohio River valley was home to a large number of various Native American tribes prior to white settlement of the area, which began in the 1700s. Numerous large cities sprang up along the river, including Pittsburgh, Wheeling, Cincinnati, and Louisville. The Ohio River was an important trade and travel route, especially before the advent of railroads. Many pioneers moving west traversed the Ohio. The Ohio River was a critical waterway in the Civil War and the events leading up to it. It formed the border that separated free and slave states in the East and was a favored avenue of movement for the Underground Railroad. The phrase “sold down the river” originated from the sale of slaves in Kentucky who were sent downriver via the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans to be resold to sugar and cotton planters. Many slave families were broken up by this river trade. Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr. See also Cairo Naval Station; Cumberland River; Mississippi River; Mound City Naval Station; New Orleans, Louisiana; Red River; Riverine Warfare; Tennessee River

References Banta, Richard E. The Ohio. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1998. Wade, Richard C. The Urban Frontier: The Rise of Western Cities, 1790–1830. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1996.

Ordnance, Naval See Naval Ordnance


P Page, Richard Lucian Birth Date: December 20, 1807 Death Date: August 9, 1901 Confederate Navy and Confederate Army officer. Born in Clarke City, Virginia, on December 20, 1807, Richard Lucian Page was a first cousin of future Confederate general Robert E. Lee, whom he greatly resembled in appearance, and of future Confederate Navy captain Sidney S. Lee. Page received a midshipman’s warrant in the U.S. Navy on March 1, 1824. Promoted to passed midshipman on February 20, 1830, he was advanced to lieutenant on March 26, 1834, and to commander on September 14, 1855. At the beginning of 1861, he had been in the navy for 36 years: some 20 years in sea service, 8 years in shore assignments, and 7 years awaiting orders in a navy with too many officers for available assignments. On the secession of Virginia, Page had charge of naval recruitment at Norfolk. Page attempted to resign his commission, but this was not accepted by Abraham Lincoln’s administration and he was dismissed from the U.S. Navy on April 18, 1861. Appointed first to the Virginia Navy as naval aide to the governor, Page supervised construction of naval defenses on the James and Nansemond rivers. Page was commissioned a commander in the Confederate Navy on June 10, 1861, with date of rank subsequently backdated to March 26, 1861. Assigned first to the Norfolk (Gosport) Navy Yard as an ordnance officer, Page subsequently commanded the Savannah Naval Station during 1861–1862, participating in the Battle of Port Royal, South Carolina, on November 7, 1861. He was then inspector of ordnance at the Norfolk Navy Yard during 1862. Secondary sources indicate that Page was promoted to captain sometime in 1862, but there is no indication of this in official records. Page was assigned to a Confederate Navy ordnance facility at Charlotte, North Carolina, during 1862–1863. During April–May 1863, he commanded Confederate forces on the Savannah River. He commanded the Charlotte Naval Station during 1863–1864. Because of his artillery training and with the Confederate Navy having too many officers for available assignments at this point in the war, Page was detailed to the army. Commissioned a brigadier general in the Provisional Army of the Confederate States on March 1, 1864, he assumed command of the outer defenses of Mobile Bay, centered on Fort Morgan, and supervised the construction or reinforcement of forts to cover the channel into the bay and approaches to Mobile itself. Following 493

494 |â•‡ Palmer, James Shedden

the defeat of Confederate naval forces in the Battle of Mobile Bay on August 5, 1864, despite being cut off and bombarded by superior Union forces, Page rejected calls from his old friend and commander of the West Gulf Blockading Squadron Rear Admiral David G. Farragut to surrender Fort Morgan unconditionally in order to spare lives. Page replied, “I am prepared to sacrifice life, and will only surrender when I have no means of defense.” Page kept that pledge. Only after two weeks of incessant Union bombardment did he write to Farragut on August 23: “The further sacrifice of life being unnecessary, my sick and wounded suffering and exposed, humanity demands that I ask for terms of capitulation.” Controversy surrounded the surrender, as some military stores in the fort were reportedly destroyed by the Confederates after the surrender and Page refused to hand over his sword, claiming he had none. Page was held prisoner at Fort Delaware until July 24, 1865. Granted parole, Page settled in Richmond, Virginia. During 1875–1883 he was the city’s superintendent of schools. Page died in Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania, on August 9, 1901. Spencer C. Tucker See also Carter, Samuel Powhatan; Charlotte Navy Yard; Farragut, David Glasgow; Fort Morgan, Alabama; James River; Lincoln, Abraham; Lockwood, Henry Hayes; Mobile Bay, Battle of; Norfolk Navy Yard; Port Royal Sound, Battle of; Savannah River Squadron; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Friend, Jack. West Wind, Flood Tide: The Battle of Mobile Bay. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2004. Register of Officers of the Confederate States Navy, 1861–1865: As Compiled and Revised by the Office of Naval Records and Library, United States Navy Department, 1931, from All Available Data. With a new introduction by John M. Carroll. Mattituck, NY: J. M. Carroll, 1981. [Originally published by the Naval Record and Library, U.S. Navy Department, in 1898 and revised in 1931.] Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 21. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1906.

Palmer, James Shedden Birth Date: October 13, 1810 Death Date: December 7, 1867 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Elizabethtown, New Jersey, on October 13, 1810, James Shedden Palmer secured a midshipman’s warrant on January 1, 1825. He

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received promotion to passed midshipman on June 4, 1831, and to lieutenant on December 17, 1836. Following the findings of the Naval Efficiency Board established to cull deadwood from serving officers in the navy, on September 13, 1855, Palmer was placed on the reserved list. Following an appeal, Palmer was restored to the active list in 1857, with promotion to commander backdated to September 14, 1855. At the beginning of 1861, Palmer had been in the navy for 36 years: more than 13 years in sea service, 4 years in shore assignments, and 17 years awaiting orders. When the Civil War began, Palmer was commanding the screw sloop Iroquois in the Mediterranean Squadron. Ordered home, on September 1, 1861, he was assigned the mission of tracking down and destroying the Confederate commerce raider Sumter, which had escaped from New Orleans and was preying on Northern merchant shipping. Palmer located the Sumter at St. Pierre, Martinique, but on the night of November 23 the raider escaped the 15-mile-wide harbor without detection. Palmer was much criticized in the Northern press for this, and Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles ordered him relieved of command on December 14. Following exoneration by a court of inquiry, Palmer resumed command of the Iroquois on May 3. With the Iroquois having previously been assigned to the West Gulf Blockading Squadron, Palmer continued in that squadron for the remainder of the war. On May 7, squadron commander Flag Officer David G. Farragut ordered Commander Palmer to secure both Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Natchez, Mississippi. Arriving in his ship off the Louisiana state capital that same evening, Palmer took the surrender of Baton Rouge the next day and that of Natchez on May 13. He then took part in operations against Vicksburg. Promoted to captain on July 16, 1862, and to commodore on February 7, 1863, Palmer assumed command of the remainder of the squadron off the mouth of the Mississippi when Farragut initiated operations to secure Mobile Bay. When Farragut requested to be relieved of command of the squadron, Palmer commanded it from November 17, 1864, to February 23, 1865, when he was relieved by Acting Rear Admiral Henry K. Thatcher. Palmer remained with the West Gulf Blockading Squadron until May 1865, when he was transferred to Washington, D.C. Palmer served on various boards until November 1865 and was promoted to rear admiral on July 25, 1865. In November 1867, Palmer was named commander of the reconstituted West Indies Squadron, which became the North Atlantic Squadron that same year. He was holding that command when he died of yellow fever at St. Thomas in the Danish West Indies (now the U.S. Virgin Islands) on December 7, 1867. Spencer C. Tucker See also Baton Rouge, Battle of; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Farragut, David Glasgow; Naval Efficiency Board; Sumter, CSS; Thatcher, Henry Knox; Vicksburg Campaign; Welles, Gideon; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

496 |â•‡ Parker, Foxhall Alexander, Jr.

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1894.

Parker, Foxhall Alexander, Jr. Birth Date: 1821 Death Date: June 10, 1879 U.S. Navy officer. Born in New York City in 1821, Foxhall Alexander Parker Jr. was the son of U.S. Navy captain Foxhall A. Parker Sr. and the brother of Confederate Navy officer William Harwar Parker. He received an appointment as a midshipman on March 11, 1837. Parker served under his father in the frigates Constitution and Brandywine and was advanced to passed midshipman on June 29, 1843. He was promoted to acting master on November 17, 1847, and to lieutenant on September 21, 1850. With the beginning of the Civil War, Parker helped defend Alexandria, Virginia, following the First Battle of Bull Run (Manassas). He was promoted to commander on July 16, 1862. He saw service with the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron off Alexandria, Virginia; commanded a naval battery ashore in the bombardment of Fort Sumter; and then commanded the Potomac Flotilla from December 31, 1863, to July 31, 1865. Parker was promoted to captain on July 25, 1866, and to commodore on November 25, 1872. In 1872, while he was the chief of staff of the North Atlantic Fleet, Commodore Parker devised a signals code for the fleet. Appointed superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, in 1878, he was one of the founders of the U.S. Naval Institute, created to promote naval professionalism. Parker died at Annapolis on June 10, 1879. He was the author of several books, including The Battle of Mobile Bay, The Naval Howitzer Afloat, and Fleet Tactics under Steam. Spencer C. Tucker See also Fort Sumter, Union Attacks on; Naval Academy, United States; Parker, William Harwar; Potomac Flotilla; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron


Parker, William Harwarâ•‡ | 497

Parker, Foxhall A. The Battle of Mobile Bay and the Capture of Forts Powell, Gaines and Morgan, by the Combined Sea and Land Forces of the U.S. under the Command of Rear-Admiral Farragut and Major-General Granger. Boston: A. Williams, 1878. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 5. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1897.

Parker, William Harwar Birth Date: October 8, 1826 Death Date: December 30, 1896 Confederate Navy officer. Born in New York City on October 8, 1826, the son of U.S. Navy captain Foxhall A. Parker Sr., William Harwar Parker received a midshipman’s warrant in the U.S. Navy on October 19, 1841. He first went to sea in the ship of the line Columbus in the Mediterranean and South Atlantic during 1842–1843, and during 1844–1845 he was in the frigate Potomac in the West Indies and Gulf of Mexico. Parker was again in the Potomac during the Mexican-American War (1846– 1848), when it was part of Commodore David Parker’s squadron blockading the Mexican Gulf Coast. Here he took part in the landing at Veracruz in which he was slightly wounded. Transferred to the frigate Raritan, he participated in the expedition against Tabasco. Promoted to passed midshipman on August 10, 1847, during 1848–1850 Parker was in the sloop Yorktown on antislavery patrol off the west coast of Africa. He survived that ship’s sinking when it struck a reef on September 6, 1850. During 1851, he was assigned to the Revenue Service cutter Washington with the U.S. Coast Survey. In 1852 he was assigned to the steam sloop Princeton and then the sloop Cyane in the West Indies and then off the coast of New England during 1852–1853. During 1853–1857, he was an instructor and then professor of navigation and astronomy at the Naval Academy and was promoted to lieutenant on September 14, 1855. He then served aboard the screw frigate Merrimack in the South Atlantic and Pacific. During this voyage, Parker wrote a gunnery manual titled Instruction for Naval Light Artillery. With the start of the Civil War, while his brother Foxhall A. Parker Jr., another U.S. Navy officer, remained loyal to the Union, Parker espoused the Confederate cause and resigned his commission on April 20, 1861. He joined first the Virginia Navy and then in June was commissioned into the Confederate Navy. Assigned command of the gunboat Beaufort, he took part in the battles of Roanoke Island and Elizabeth City, North Carolina, in February 1862 and, with his ship serving as tender to CSS Virginia, in the Battle of Hampton Roads on March 8–9, 1862. In May 1862, Parker served in the Confederate shore batteries during the First Battle of Drewry’s Bluff on the James River below Richmond.

498 |â•‡ Parker, William Harwar

Following several months ashore, Parker was assigned to Charleston, South Carolina, where he became the executive officer of the Confederate ironclad Palmetto State and took part in the attack on the Union blockading warships off Charleston on January 31, 1863. In October he became the commandant of the Confederate Naval Academy in the side-wheeler steamer Patrick Henry at Drewry’s Bluff. During May–June 1864, he also commanded the ironclad Richmond. In April 1865, with the destruction of the Confederate James River Squadron during the evacuation of Richmond, Parker took charge of the midshipmen guarding the removal of the Confederate gold reserves. Following the war, Parker joined fellow former Confederate Navy officer James I. Waddell as a captain of a Pacific Mail Steamship Company ship and then was the president of Maryland Agricultural College (now the University of Maryland at College Park) until his efforts to create a cadet corps there led to his resignation at the end of 1882. Appointed minister to Korea in June 1886, Parker was removed less than a year later because of alcoholism and retired to Washington, D.C., where he wrote his memoirs. He died there on December 30, 1896. Spencer C. Tucker See also Charleston, South Carolina, CSA Navy Attack on U.S. Navy Blockaders; Coast Survey, U.S.; Drewry’s Bluff, First Battle of; Elizabeth City, Battle of; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Ironclads, Confederate; James River; James River Squadron, CSA; Naval Academy, Confederate; Naval Academy, United States; Parker, Foxhall Alexander, Jr.; Richmond, CSS; Roanoke Island, North Carolina, Union Capture of; Virginia, CSS; Waddell, James Iredell

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Campbell, R. Thomas. Academy on the James: The Confederate Naval School. Shippensburg, PA: Burd Street Press, 1999. Conrad, James Lee. Rebel Reefers: The Organization and Midshipmen of the Confederate States Naval Academy. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2003. Coski, John M. Capital Navy: The Men, Ships and Operations of the James River Squadron. Campbell, CA: Savas, 1996. Parker, William H. Instruction for Naval Light Artillery, Afloat and Ashore, Prepared and Arranged for the U.S. Naval Academy. Newport, RI: J. Atkinson, 1862. Parker, William H. Recollections of a Naval Officer, 1841–1865. Edited by Craig Symonds. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1985. Register of Officers of the Confederate States Navy, 1861–1865: As Compiled and Revised by the Office of Naval Records and Library, United States Navy Department, 1931, from All Available Data. With a new introduction by John M. Carroll. Mattituck, NY: J. M. Carroll, 1981. [Originally published by the Naval Record and Library, U.S. Navy Department, in 1898 and revised in 1931.]

Parrott, Robert Parkerâ•‡ | 499

Parrott, Robert Parker Birth Date: October 5, 1804 Death Date: December 24, 1877 U.S. Army officer and ordnance expert. Born on October 5, 1804, at Lee, New Hampshire, Robert Parker Parrott graduated from the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, in 1824 where he remained as an instructor until 1829. He then served as a second lieutenant in the 3rd U.S. Artillery Regiment during operations against the Creeks in the southeast and later as assistant to the chief of the Ordnance Bureau. Promoted to captain, Parrott served as ordnance inspector at the privately owned West Point Foundry at Cold Spring, New York. In October 1836 Parrott resigned his commission to become superintendent of the foundry, a primary ordnance supplier to the army. Parrott is best known for his development of the Parrott muzzle-loading rifled cannon, which he patented in 1861 and which was one of the primary types of artillery used during the Civil War. His chief innovation in cannon design lay in heat shrinking a wrought-iron reinforcing band around the weapon’s breech, the point of greatest strain. Parrott thus economically produced a stronger, more reliable weapon. West Point Foundry manufactured the Model 1861 and the more simplified 1863 Parrott designs in a wide variety of calibers. The original 2.9-inch (10-pounder) field gun was quickly replaced by a 3-inch version, a move deemed necessary so that its ammunition would be interchangeable with the other primary field gun, the 3-inch ordnance rifle. The West Point Foundry also produced the heavier 3.67-inch (20-pounder) and 4.2-inch (30-pounder) guns, as well as huge 10-inch (300-pounder) siege and naval pieces. Although popular with gunners for their superior range and accuracy in all calibers, the larger model Parrotts became notorious for exploding during service. Despite such drawbacks, the Parrott remained popular among field gunners. Southern foundries also copied it extensively for Robert Parker Parrott, head of the West Point Foundry and inventor of a rifled Confederate service. cannon widely utilized by the U.S. Army and Parrott also designed advanced Navy and copied by the Confederates. cylindro-conical projectiles for his (West Point Museum Collection, United rifled guns. From 1856 to 1859 he States Military Academy Museum)

500 |â•‡ Parrott Guns

collaborated with Dr. John Brahan Reed of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in a number of government experiments, and their first projectiles were manufactured at the Washington Navy Yard. The partnership between Parrott and Reed eventually ended at the onset of the Civil War, as Reed’s loyalty lay with his home state. Parrott purchased an interest in Reed’s patents upon Reed’s return to the South in 1859. Parrott later focused primarily on perfecting his projectiles’ sabots and fuses; he also developed sighting instruments for his various guns. During a time of rampant war profiteering, Parrott’s West Point Foundry supplied the U.S. government with weapons at the cost of their manufacture. Parrott remained superintendent of the West Point Foundry until his retirement in 1867. He died at Cold Spring on December 24, 1877. Jeff Kinard See also Artillery Projectiles, Naval; Dahlgren Guns; Naval Ordnance; Parrott Guns; Washington Navy Yard

References Dickey, Thomas S., and Peter C. George. Field Artillery Projectiles of the American Civil War. Atlanta: Arsenal Press, 1980. Hazlett, James C., Edwin Olmstead, and M. Hume Parks. Field Artillery Weapons of the Civil War. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1983. Melton, Jack W., Jr., and Lawrence E. Paul. Introduction to Field Artillery Ordnance, 1861–1865. Kennesaw, GA: Kennesaw Mountain Press, Inc., 1994. Olmstead, Edwin, Wayne E. Stark, and Spencer C. Tucker. The Big Guns: Civil War Siege, Seacoast, and Naval Cannon. Alexandria Bay, NY: Museum Restoration Service, 1997.

Parrott Guns The most widely used rifled guns of the Civil War. Designed by Robert P. Parrott, superintendent of the West Point Foundry, Parrott guns were easy to operate, reliable, accurate, and relatively inexpensive to manufacture. Both sides produced them during the war. The Parrott was essentially a cast-iron rifled gun with a wrought-iron band shrunk over the breech, the point of greatest strain. The band was equal in thickness to half the diameter of the bore. Parrott’s first rifled gun was a 2.9-inch (land diameter) 10-pounder. Prior to the Civil War, Parrott also produced a 3.67-inch (20-pounder) and a 4.2-inch (30-pounder). Neither the army nor navy adopted the Parrott guns until after the start of the Civil War. During the war, Parrotts were produced in bore diameters of 2.9 inches, 3 inches, 3.3 inches, 3.67 inches, 4.2 inches, 5.3 inches (60-pounder), 6.4 inches (100-pounder army; 80-pounder navy), 8 inches (200-pounder army, 150-pounder navy), and 10 inches (300-pounder army, 250-pounder navy). The guns had spiraled rifling, which ranged from 3 grooves and lands on the 2.9-inch to 15 grooves and lands on the 10-inch.

Parrott Gunsâ•‡ | 501

The gun deck of U.S. Navy screw sloop Pawnee. In the left foreground is a 6.4-inch (80-pounder) Parrott rifled gun. Behind it are IX-inch Dahlgren broadside guns. (Naval History and Heritage Command)

The smallest U.S. Navy Parrott was the 3.67-inch. The larger guns were better suited to naval service, where weight was also not as much a factor as in field artillery on land. The 6.4-inch Parrott, for example, weighed some 9,800 pounds. With a powder charge of 10 pounds and at 35 degrees of elevation, it could fire its projectile more than five miles. The U.S. Navy employed the 8-inch Parrott in the turrets of some of its monitors alongside a smoothbore Dahlgren. The Parrott gun fired an elongated projectile some three calibers in length. Cylindro-conical in shape, it had a bronze ring at a contraction in the base. Upon ignition of the powder charge, the gas expanded the bronze ring into the grooves of the bore, thus imparting a spin to the projectile. Parrott projectiles were fitted with both time and percussion fuses, and there were also variations with hardened noses to pierce armor. Both the army and navy experienced problems during the war with Parrott guns bursting, most notably in operations against Charleston and Fort Fisher. Parrott blamed these on premature shell explosions rather than defects in the bore, but clearly these early rifled guns experienced greater problems than did the smoothbores, especially from grit and sand in the bores. Fewer navy guns burst, which was probably attributable to an order that all rifled projectiles be thoroughly greased before they were loaded. The navy did subsequently remove its heaviest Parrotts from service, however. From the beginning of the war through April 1864, nearly 2,000 Parrotts were manufactured for the U.S. Army and Navy, representing about one-fifth of Union

502 |â•‡ Passaic-class Monitors

guns on land and sea. The Confederates produced their own Parrotts at the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond in 2.9-inch, 3-inch, 3.67-inch, and 4.2-inch sizes. Spencer C. Tucker See also Artillery Projectiles, Naval; Brooke Guns; Charleston, South Carolina; Dahlgren Guns; Fort Fisher Campaign; Naval Ordnance; Parrott, Robert Parker; Tredegar Iron Works

References Hazlett, James C., Edwin Olmstead, and M. Hume Parks. Field Artillery Weapons of the Civil War. Newark: Delaware University Press, 1983. Olmstead, Edwin, Wayne E. Stark, and Spencer C. Tucker. The Big Guns: Civil War Siege, Seacoast, and Naval Cannon. Alexandria Bay, NY: Museum Restoration Service, 1997. Tucker, Spencer C. Arming the Fleet: U.S. Navy Ordnance in the Muzzle-Loading Era. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989.

Passaic-class Monitors Highly successful U.S. Navy 10-ship class of ironclad monitors, and the first ships to mount a 15-inch gun that did not project outside the turret. Based on the success of USS Monitor in the Battle of Hampton Roads on March 9, 1862, a veritable “Monitor Mania” swept the North, and in February 1862 the U.S. Congress approved a 21-ship ironclad program. The Passaic-class monitors were designed by noted naval architect and engineer John Ericsson, who had come up with the innovative design for the Monitor. Based on its performance, Ericsson made a number of changes. The Passaic-class monitors displaced 1,335 tons and had a length of 200 feet between perpendiculars, a beam of 46 feet, and depth of 11 feet, 6 inches. Propelled by a single screw with an engine designed by Ericsson, they were capable of a speed of seven knots. They had a crew of 68–69 men. They were protected by 11 inches of armor on the turret, 8 inches on the pilothouse, 5 inches on the sides, and 1 inch on the deck. Armament consisted of one XV-inch Dahlgren smoothbore paired with one XI-inch Dahlgren smoothbore. The Camanche, however, mounted two 15-inchers; while the Lehigh and Patapsco each mounted a XV-inch Dahlgren paired with an 8-inch (150-pounder) Parrott rifle. All had different colored bands on their turrets for identification purposes. Unlike the Monitor, in the Passaic class the pilothouse was placed atop the turret, allowing for better communication among captain, pilot, and crew. The Passaics also had a permanent smoke pipe. Weaknesses included the tendency of turrets to jam if struck near the base ring and the necessity of opening the gun ports to reload the guns. The Passaic class consisted of the following ships: the Passaic, Montauk, NaÂ�hant, Patapsco, Weehawken, Sangamon, Catskill, Nantucket, Lehigh, and Camanche,

Paulding, Hiramâ•‡ | 503

most of which were assigned to the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. Seven took part in Rear Admiral Samuel F. Du Pont’s attack on Fort Sumter on April 7, 1863. Their small number of guns and slow rate of fire were a disadvantage against the more numerous heavy Confederate pieces, and all the monitors received damage, some serious. On December 6, 1863, the Weehawken foundered off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina, while taking on supplies, with a loss of 4 officers and 27 enlisted men. The Patapsco was sunk by a 60-pound Confederate mine on January 14, 1865, while conducting obstruction clearance operations in Charleston Harbor. It sank with a loss of 105 men. The Camanche was disassembled and shipped to San Francisco, where it was later reassembled. It was the U.S. Navy’s first ironclad warship stationed on the Pacific coast and was one of only two stationed there for nearly 25 years. Some of the Passaic-class ships were rebuilt in 1871–1875 with their decks raised by 15 inches. The class saw service in the Spanish-American War of 1898, and the last Passaic-class ships were stricken from the navy list in 1904. Robert A. Lynn and Spencer C. Tucker See also Dahlgren Guns; Du Pont, Samuel Francis; Charleston, South Carolina; Charleston, South Carolina, Du Pont’s Attack on; Ericsson, John; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Ironclads, Union; Monitor, USS; Monitor Mania; Naval Ordnance; Parrott Guns; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Torpedoes

References Gardiner, Robert. Conway’s All the World’s Fighting Ships: 1860–1905. London: Conway Maritime, 1979. Konstam, Angus. Union Monitor, 1861–1865. Oxford, UK: Osprey, 2002. Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989.

Paulding, Hiram Birth Date: December 11, 1797 Death Date: October 20, 1878 U.S. Navy officer. Born in New York City on December 11, 1797, Hiram Paulding received a midshipman’s warrant on September 1, 1811. He was promoted to lieutenant on April 27, 1816; to master commandant on February 9, 1837; and to captain on February 29, 1844. During 1855–1858, Paulding commanded the Home Squadron as commodore and then flag officer. At the beginning of 1861, Paulding had been in the navy for 49 years: some 22 years of service at sea, 7 years in assignments ashore, and 19 years awaiting orders in a navy with too many officers for available assignments.

504 |â•‡ Paulding, Hiram

From March to September 1861, Paulding was assigned as chief of the important new Office of Detail in the Navy Department in Washington, D.C., which was charged with selecting officers for assignments. On April 18, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, furious at the refusal of the commandant of the Norfolk (Gosport) Navy Yard, Captain Charles S. McCauley, to permit the steam frigate Merrimack to depart that place, dispatched Paulding to replace him. The yard was then threatened with takeover by the state of Virginia. Paulding arrived back at Norfolk late on April 20 following a quick trip to Washington, D.C., only to find that McCauley, believing the yard was about to be attacked, had ordered the scuttling of all its ships. Paulding U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Hiram Paulding joined the navy as a midshipman in 1811 then had no choice but to continue and served through the Civil War. In the work already begun. He was able command of the Gosport (Norfolk) Navy to get off only two ships, the screw Yard at the start of the war, he largely sloop Pawnee towing the sailing sloop botched the job of its destruction, which Cumberland, early on April 21. Once proved of great advantage to the Confedthey had departed, Paulding gave the eracy. (National Archives) signal to torch the yard and destroy its facilities. The work of destruction on April 21 was at best only haphazard, but the result was a considerable loss, not only in ships, including the Merrimack (which would be rebuilt by the Confederates into the ironclad Virginia), but in ordnance and supplies. The Confederates’ haul included 1,198 guns, including 52 IX-inch Dahlgrens. Both Paulding and McCauley came under considerable criticism in the Northern press for their handling of the situation. In October, Paulding assumed command of the New York (Brooklyn) Navy Yard. Although he was placed on the retired list on December 21, Paulding continued in this command. Promoted to rear admiral on the retired list on July 16, 1862, Paulding remained in command of the yard until May 1865. During 1866– 1869 he was governor of the Philadelphia Naval Asylum and then port admiral of Boston until October 1870. Paulding died in Huntington, New York, on October 20, 1878. Spencer C. Tucker

Pawnee, USSâ•‡ | 505

See also Brooklyn Navy Yard; Dahlgren Guns; McCauley, Charles Stewart; Norfolk Navy Yard; Pawnee, USS; Philadelphia Naval Asylum; Virginia, CSS; Welles, Gideon


Pawnee, USS U.S. Navy screw sloop. Built at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, the Pawnee was laid down in October 1858, launched on October 8, 1859, and commissioned on June 11, 1860. Displacing 1,553 tons, the sloop had a length of 233 feet, beam of 41 feet, and draft of 11 feet. Rigged as a bark, the ship had a clipper bow and no bowsprit. Propelled by two screws, the Pawnee was capable of 11 knots. Crew complement varied between 151 and 181 men. Although this varied during the life of the ship, in August 1861 the Pawnee was armed with eight IX-inch Dahlgren guns and two 12-pounder Dahlgren boat howitzers. Following its commissioning, the Pawnee served with the Home Squadron during 1860. On April 10, 1861, it sailed with the side-wheeler steamer Harriet Lane and supply ship Baltic in the attempted relief of Fort Sumter. On April 21, it towed off the sailing sloop Cumberland from the Norfolk (Gosport) Navy Yard just before that facility was torched by withdrawing Union forces. Assigned to the Potomac Flotilla, it assisted in the Union occupation of Alexandria, Virginia, on May 24. During May 31–June 1, it joined the steamers Thomas Freeborn, Anacostia, and Resolute in shelling Confederate shore batteries at Aquia Creek, Virginia. Assigned to the Atlantic Blockading Squadron and later the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, the Pawnee took part in the operation to occupy Hatteras Inlet on August 28–29, 1861. On November 5, 1861, it joined the screw gunboats Ottawa, Pembina, and Seneca in engaging a Confederate squadron off Port Royal, South Carolina, and two days later took part in the occupation of Port Royal. The Pawnee bombarded Confederate forts at St. Helena Sound, South Carolina, during November 25–28, and it assisted in the capture by Union forces of Fernandina, Florida; Brunswick, Georgia; and St. Simons and Jekyll Islands, Georgia, during March 2–12, 1862. On July 16, 1863, the Pawnee engaged Confederate shore batteries in the Stono River in South Carolina during which it was damaged. It again engaged these same

506 |â•‡ Peacemaker, Explosion of

shore batteries on December 25 and then took part in expeditions up the Stono River on July 5 and in the Broad River during November 27–December 30, 1864. The Pawnee engaged Confederate shore batteries in Togodo Creek, South Carolina, on February 9, 1865, and it took part in Union operations at Georgetown, South Carolina, on February 23. The Pawnee was decommissioned on July 26, 1865. Recommissioned two years later, it served in the Brazil Squadron during 1867–1869. Its engines were removed in 1870 and it was then employed as a receiving and hospital ship and then as a storeship, first at Key West, Florida, during 1871–1875 and then at Port Royal, South Carolina. It was sold at the latter location on May 3, 1884. Spencer C. Tucker See also Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, Relief Efforts and Beginning of the Civil War; Harriet Lane, USS; Hatteras Inlet, Union Assault on; Norfolk Navy Yard; Philadelphia Navy Yard; Port Royal Sound, Battle of; Potomac Flotilla; Receiving Ship; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Stono River Expedition

References Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. II, Vol. 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1921. U.S. Navy Department, Naval History Division. Civil War Naval Chronology, 1861– 1865. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971.

Peacemaker, Explosion of Event Date: February 28, 1844 The new U.S. Navy steam sloop Princeton mounted two 12-inch wrought-iron guns and two 42-pounder carronades. One, designed by John Ericsson and manufactured in Britain, was named the Orator. The second, named the Peacemaker, had been ordered in the United States by Captain Robert F. Stockton, commander of the Princeton. Weighing about 10 tons, it was manufactured, in some haste, by Ward & Company. The big guns fired 225-pound shot. Accorded the place of honor in the bow of the Princeton, the Peacemaker was the gun fired for demonstration purposes. On February 28, 1844, the Princeton took aboard several hundred people, including President John Tyler, at Alexandria, Virginia, for a cruise down the Potomac. The Peacemaker was fired twice with success, but on a third firing the gun blew up. The explosion killed eight people, including Secretary of State Abel Upshur and Secretary of the Navy Thomas Gilmer, and injured nine others. Tyler was below and unhurt.

Pearson, George Frederickâ•‡ | 507

The subsequent inquiry exonerated Stockton but found fault with the quality of the metal in the gun’s construction. The explosion led to the Bureau of Ordnance and Hydrography assuming sole responsibility of proof of naval weapons and brought experiments into metallurgical techniques that resulted in higher quality guns for the U.S. Navy. But it also held up the introduction of heavy guns aboard navy ships and led to regulations reducing the powder charges for guns that may have enabled CSS Virginia to escape destruction at the hands of USS Monitor during the March 9, 1862, Battle of Hampton Roads (the powder charge for the 11-inch gun having been reduced to 15 pounds). Ericsson, designer of the Monitor, had tried without success to have the ironclad’s XI-inch Dahlgren guns fired with full charges. The reduced charges order was subsequently revoked. Spencer C. Tucker See also Dahlgren Guns; Ericsson, John; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Monitor, USS; Naval Ordnance; Virginia, CSS

References Beach, Edward L. The United States Navy: 200 Years. New York: Henry Holt, 1986. Tucker, Spencer C. “The Explosion of the ‘Peacemaker’ aboard Sloop Princeton.” In New Interpretations in Naval History: Selected Papers from the Eighth Naval History Symposium, edited by William B. Cogar, 175–189. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989.

Pearson, George Frederick Birth Date: February 6, 1796 Death Date: June 30, 1867 U.S. Navy officer. Born in New Hampshire on February 6, 1796, George Frederick Pearson received a midshipman’s warrant on March 11, 1815. He was promoted to lieutenant on January 13, 1825, and to commander on September 8, 1841. Pearson was commanding the sloop Boston during the 1846–1848 Mexican-American War when it was caught in a squall while running through New Providence Channel in the Bahamas early on November 15, 1846, and was blown against Eleuthera Island and completely wrecked. Pearson was not found at fault, and he was promoted to captain on September 14, 1855. At the beginning of 1861, Pearson had been in the navy for 45 years: 20 years in sea service, 10 years in assignments ashore, and some 15 years awaiting orders in a navy with too many officers for available billets. In August 1860, Pearson was assigned to command the Portsmouth Navy Yard at Kittery, Maine. Although placed on the retired list on December 21, 1861, Pearson continued in this position during the Civil War until October 1864. In February 1863, he was promoted to commodore on the retired list with date of rank backdated to July 16, 1862. On October 4, 1864, Pearson was appointed commander

508 |â•‡ Pendergast, Garrett Jesse

of the Pacific Squadron, relieving Rear Admiral Charles H. Bell in that post on October 25 and holding the command until the end of 1866. Promoted to rear admiral on the retired list on July 25, 1866, Pearson relinquished command of the squadron that December. Pearson died at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on June 30, 1867. Spencer C. Tucker See also Bell, Charles Heyer; Portsmouth Navy Yard


Pendergast, Garrett Jesse Birth Date: December 5, 1802 Death Date: November 7, 1862 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Kentucky on December 5, 1802, Garrett Jesse Pendergast received a midshipman’s warrant on January 1, 1812. He was promoted to lieutenant on March 3, 1821, and to commander on September 8, 1841. Pendergast commanded the sloop Boston in South American waters before the MexicanAmerican War of 1846–1848. Advanced to captain on May 24, 1855, in February 1856 he commissioned the screw frigate Merrimack (the future CSS Virginia) and commanded it on a shakedown cruise to the Caribbean and to western Europe. On October 19, 1860, Pendergast assumed command of the Home Squadron. At the beginning of 1861, he had been in the navy for some 49 years: 21 years of sea service, 9 years of service ashore, and 19 years awaiting orders in a navy with too many officers for available assignments. With the onset of the Civil War, he immediately attempted to set up a blockade with the few ships he had available. Flying his flag in the sloop Cumberland in the first significant naval actions of the war beginning on April 24, 1861, Pendergast seized a number of Confederate ships and privateers, including the tug Young America and schooner George M. Smith carrying arms and ammunition in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. On April 30, Pendergast optimistically, and incorrectly, reported that he had “sufficient force” to carry out President Abraham Lincoln’s proclamation of blockade of the Confederacy. As it turned out, there were insufficient ships for a blockade of Virginia alone. In May, the Home Squadron was designated the West India Squadron and Pendergast continued in command until September 6, 1861. Pendergast was married to

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Virginia Barron, the sister of Samuel Barron of Virginia, another U.S. Navy officer who joined the Confederate Navy at the onset of the Civil War. When Pendergast remained loyal to the Union, she reportedly left him, swearing she would never live with him again. Advanced to commodore on the retired list on July 16, 1862, Pendergast was assigned to command the Philadelphia Navy Yard. He was serving in that capacity when he died of a stroke on November 7, 1862. Spencer C. Tucker See also Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Barron, Samuel; Blockade of the Confederacy; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Lincoln, Abraham; Philadelphia Navy Yard; Virginia, CSS

References Browning, Robert M., Jr. From Cape Charles to Cape Fear: The North Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1993. Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vols. 4–5. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1896, 1897. U.S. Navy Department, Naval History Division. Civil War Naval Chronology, 1861– 1865. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971.

Pensacola Navy Yard U.S. Navy facility located at the southern tip of Escambia County, Florida, on the Gulf Coast, controlled by Confederate secessionists from January 1861 to May 1862 at which time it again came under U.S. control. Established in 1825, this Florida port facility, the only one located along the Gulf of Mexico, saw limited use before the Civil War. Until the 1846–1848 Mexican-American War, government funding had been allocated mostly to East Coast navy yards. However, by 1848 Pensacola had been transformed into a strategic post. By the time of the Civil War, the yard had a building slip and a floating dry dock. Secessionists took over the navy yard without a struggle on January 14, 1861, and burned it just before Union reoccupation on May 9, 1862. Rear Admiral David G. Farragut subsequently selected Pensacola as the home port for the West Gulf Blockading Squadron. For the remainder of the war, the Pensacola Navy Yard was used as a repair facility, although its lack of heavy machinery hampered its effectiveness. Today, the site is used as a naval air station. William E. Whyte III

510 |â•‡ Permanent Commission See also Farragut, David Glasgow; Fort Pickens, Florida; Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, Relief Efforts and Beginning of the Civil War; Gulf of Mexico; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Canney, Donald L. Lincoln’s Navy: The Ships, Men and Organization, 1861–65. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998. Pearce, George F. The U.S. Navy in Pensacola: From Sailing Ships to Naval Aviation, 1825–1930. Pensacola: University of West Florida Press, 1980.

Permanent Commission Scientific advisory board to the U.S. Department of the Navy created in 1863. Technological innovations and improvements were applied on a large scale during the Civil War, and many citizens sought to contribute to the war effort by submitting new inventions and ideas to the U.S. government. In order to expedite the evaluation of these ideas, leading U.S. scientist Joseph Henry proposed to the Navy Department the formation of an advisory agency. In February 1863, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles approved Henry’s plan, and the Permanent Commission, made up of Henry, U.S. Coast Survey superintendent Alexander D. Bache, and Rear Admiral Charles H. Davis was formally established. This commission helped formulate a bill to establish the National Academy of Sciences in March 1863. Robert A. Lynn See also Bache, Alexander Dallas; Blockade Board; Coast Survey, U.S.; Davis, Charles Henry; Navy, U.S.; Welles, Gideon

References Bacon, Benjamin. Sinews of War: How Technology, Industry, and Transportation Won the Civil War. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1997. Ross, Charles D. Trial by Fire: Science, Technology and the Civil War. Shippensburg, PA: White Mane, 2000.

Peterhoff Crisis Event Date: 1863 Operating on orders from Acting Rear Admiral Charles Wilkes, the U.S. Navy sidewheeler Vanderbilt, commanded by Lieutenant Charles Baldwin, seized the British merchant ship Peterhoff on February 25, 1863. Although bound for the neutral port of Matamoros, Mexico, located just across the Rio Grande from Brownsville,

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Texas, the Peterhoff was suspected of carrying goods to the Confederacy and was sent to New York for adjudication. Another U.S. Navy ship had stopped the Peterhoff earlier and found the cargo manifest suspicious. Although the ship was heavily laden, the cargo manifest listed only seven cases of tea. News of the capture sparked outrage in Britain and opened up various legal questions regarding international law and neutrality. First, Wilkes had been in a neutral port, St. Thomas, in the screw sloop Wachusett when he ordered the Peterhoff seized. Second, the Peterhoff was flying the flag of a neutral nation, Great Britain, and bound for another neutral nation, Mexico. The fact that Â�Wilkes had triggered the Trent Affair in November 1861 when he removed Confederate diplomats from the British mail packet Trent only intensified the volatile situation. According to the traditional U.S. interpretation of international law, a neutral vessel bound for a neutral port could not be seized. This interpretation was altered with the coming of the Civil War and the complexities of maintaining a vast coastal blockade. U.S. authorities now invoked the British concept of continuous voyage—that is, goods that were not permitted to go directly to a belligerent nation were not allowed to go there indirectly either. Matamoros, with its close proximity to Texas, had become a popular port for illicit trade with the Confederacy. A dispute over the ship’s sealed mail became the biggest point of contention for both sides. The British consul asserted that the mail was off limits, and Secretary of State William Seward agreed. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles was of the opinion that the mail, like the ship’s cargo, was subject to the jurisdiction of the prize courts. President Abraham Lincoln, leery of a conflict with Great Britain, weighed in on the side of caution, and allowed the mail to be returned. On July 10, 1863, Judge Samuel R. Betts ruled that the Peterhoff’s freight was bound for the Confederacy and therefore contraband. The ship’s owners appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. On April 15, 1867, long after the crisis had passed and the prize sold off, Chief Justice Samuel P. Chase overruled the lower court’s decision. The owners of the Peterhoff were awarded almost $68,000 in damages. William E. Whyte III See also Blockade of the Confederacy; Lincoln, Abraham; Prize Cases; Trent Affair; Welles, Gideon; Wilkes, Charles

References Bernath, Stuart L. “Squall across the Atlantic: The Peterhoff Episode.” Journal of Southern History 34(3) (August 1968): 382–401. Myers, Phillip E. Caution and Cooperation: The American Civil War in British-American Relations. Kent State, OH: Kent State University Press, 2008. Symonds, Craig L. Lincoln and His Admirals. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.

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Phelps, Seth Ledyard Birth Date: January 13, 1824 Death Date: June 24, 1885 U.S. Navy officer. Born on January 13, 1824, in Chardon, Ohio, Seth L. Phelps entered naval service as a midshipman on October 19, 1841. He was advanced to passed midshipman on August 10, 1847. Phelps first served in the Mediterranean and Brazil squadrons and later off Africa. He also saw service in the MexicanAmerican War (1846–1848). Following that war he was stationed at the Naval Observatory and then participated in the successful attempt to lay a transatlantic cable. Phelps made master on June 30, 1855, and lieutenant on September 15 of the same year. Soon after the Civil War began, Phelps was one of the first naval officers sent west to help build the Western Gunboat Flotilla. He assisted Commander John Rodgers in the conversion of the timberclads Tyler, Lexington, and Conestoga. Then, as commander of the Conestoga, he helped develop the tactics used with success by the U.S. Navy on the western rivers. Phelps commanded the division of timberclads in the attack on Fort Henry, Tennessee, on February 6, 1862. On the direction of Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote, Phelps led a raid up the Tennessee River (February 6–10) immediately following the fort’s capitulation, reaching as far as Muscle Shoals, Alabama. He was promoted to lieutenant commander on July 16. Following the Union capture of Island Number 10, Phelps became the flag officer and chief assistant to the new commander, Captain Charles H. Davis. Phelps had hoped to replace Davis on the latter’s departure but lost out to Rear Admiral David D. Porter. Phelps then took command of the Eastport, the largest ironclad in the Mississippi Squadron. During the Red River Campaign (March 10–May 22, 1864), the Eastport participated in the attack on Fort DeRussy (March 12). The Eastport struck a torpedo (naval mine) about eight miles below Grand Ecore, Louisiana, and sank in shallow water. Although the ship was refloated, it proved impossible to tow, and the Eastport had to be scuttled. Porter blamed Phelps, who resigned on October 29, 1864. After the war, Phelps served on the District of Columbia Board of Commissioners and as minister to Peru. He died while serving in that capacity, in Lima, Peru, on June 24, 1885. Gary D. Joiner and Spencer C. Tucker See also Davis, Charles Henry; Eastport, USS; Foote, Andrew Hull; Fort Henry, Battle of; Island Number 10, Battle of; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Phelps’s Raid; Porter, David Dixon; Red River Campaign; Riverine Warfare; Rodgers, John; Timberclads; Torpedoes

References Joiner, Gary D. Mr. Lincoln’s Brown Water Navy: The Mississippi Squadron. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007.

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Shea, William L., and Terrence J. Winschel. Vicksburg Is the Key: The Struggle for the Mississippi River. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003. Slagle, Jay. Ironclad Captain: Seth Ledyard Phelps & the U.S. Navy, 1841–1864. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1996.

Phelps’s Raid Start Date: February 6, 1862 End Date: February 10, 1862 Union naval raid up the Tennessee River during February 6–10, 1862. Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote was so confident of victory in the coming Union assault on Fort Henry on the Tennessee River that on February 2, 1862, four days before the attack and on his own initiative, he issued special orders to Lieutenant Seth Ledyard Phelps that, on the fall of Fort Henry, he was to move his three timberclad gunboats—the Conestoga (flagship), Lexington, and Tyler—up the Tennessee River. Foote ordered Phelps to disable the key 1,200-foot Memphis, Louisville & Clarksville Railroad drawbridge at Danville, Tennessee, 25 miles above Fort Henry, and then raid into Confederate territory as far upriver as the depth of water would allow. Following the Union capture of Fort Henry on February 6, Phelps set out. A fast Confederate steamer, the Dunbar, spread the alarm in advance of Phelps’s ships. En route to Danville, Phelps discovered the camp of the 48th and 51st Tennessee Regiments along the shore and stopped to shell it. At Danville, meanwhile, the Confederates loaded military supplies aboard four transports and sent them upriver and then disabled the drawbridge. The Union ships arrived at the railroad bridge that evening, opening fire on the Dunbar, which had remained in the vicinity, and forcing it upriver. Phelps then landed men and in about an hour they succeeded in opening the drawbridge. He then left behind Lieutenant William Gwin and the Tyler, the slowest of his gunboats, so that its crew might destroy track and telegraph line. Phelps proceeded with the Conestoga and Lexington. His mission accomplished, Gwin hurried the Tyler upriver. The raiders did not destroy the railroad bridge as Foote had ordered, judging that this could be accomplished on their return. Phelps’s Conestoga, meanwhile, pressed ahead of the slower Lexington and gained on the heavily laden Confederate transports. The captain of one of these, on the Samuel Orr, decided to fire his vessel rather than see it and its contents fall into Union hands. The Conestoga kept at a discreet distance as explosions ripped the Confederate steamer. Farther upriver the captains of the Appleton Belle and Lynn Boyd, realizing that they too would soon be overhauled, ran their ships ashore and fired them in turn. Spotting the burning steamers, Phelps halted the Conestoga

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some 1,000 yards away. No sooner had it stopped than a tremendous explosion ripped apart the Appleton Belle, which had been loaded with ordnance supplies and 3,000 pounds of powder. Even at that distance, the explosion effected some minor damage to the Conestoga. The explosion also shattered the Lynn Boyd. Phelps then halted to wait for the other two gunboats, which did not have pilots aboard. At 11:00 a.m. on February 7, all three gunboats arrived at Perry’s Landing, Tennessee, where they discovered strong pro-Union sentiment. At 7:00 p.m., the Union gunboats reached Cerro Gordo, Tennessee. Small-arms fire on the Conestoga produced retaliatory shelling from it and the Tyler. There Phelps took possession of the large, 570-ton steamer Eastport, which had been undergoing conversion into an ironclad ram, as well as a quantity of materials intended for it, including lumber and iron plating. Although the Eastport had been partially scuttled, the Union sailors were able to stop the leaks and pump out the water. Again leaving the Tyler behind, this time to guard his prize, Phelps pressed on with the Conestoga and Lexington. On February 8, in Mississippi, Phelps took two small steamers, the Muscle and Sally Wood, at Waterloo Landing, the latter filled with iron destined for the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond. A Union prize crew boarded the Muscle and used it to tow the Sallie Wood back to Cerro Gordo. Phelps’s gunboats got as far south as Florence, Alabama, on the afternoon of February 8. Here the raid ended, stopped by Muscle Shoals. The crews of the Dunbar and another steamer, the Alfred Robb, managed to prevent their capture by hiding them in a stream. The Confederates fired three other steamers, the Julius Smith, Sam Kirkman, and Time. The Julius Smith was cut loose with paddle wheels turning in reverse in the hopes that it would run into and destroy one or more of the raiders, but the Union gunboats easily avoided its mad passage downstream. The other two steamers were fired at the landing, but seamen from the Conestoga managed to save a quantity of stores from them. A delegation of Florence citizens pleaded with Phelps not to destroy their city or the prized 15-pier railroad bridge over the river. Phelps reasoned that because Muscle Shoals impeded him from further passage upriver and the bridge had little military value, he would leave it alone. He also assured the delegation that the Union seamen would not destroy private property. After going through warehouses and seizing a quantity of official Confederate property, Phelps ordered private property seized aboard the steamers offloaded and returned to its owners. That same evening the two gunboats departed Florence. Later that night they reached Cerro Gordo, where Gwin and his men had been busy loading captured supplies and readying the Eastport for its trip downriver. Phelps consulted with Gwin and Lieutenant James W. Shirk of the Lexington. The three decided they would assault a Confederate regimental camp near Savannah, Tennessee, reportedly containing some 600 men. Leaving the Lexington behind to guard the Eastport, the Conestoga and Tyler set out. They soon arrived at Savannah, and 130 sailors and marines went ashore with a Dahlgren boat howitzer, only to find the camp had been

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hastily deserted. The landing party then removed some stores and fired others, along with the camp’s buildings. On the night of February 9 the Lexington and Tyler took the Eastport in tow, while the Conestoga towed the Sallie Wood and Muscle. But the Muscle sprung a leak and had to be abandoned, along with its cargo. On February 10, Phelps’s little flotilla returned to Fort Henry. The expedition had been a considerable success. It had taken three Confederate steamers and led to the destruction of six others. The large Eastport was a particularly valuable capture and became a Union ironclad by the same name. The expedition also secured a considerable quantity of lumber, iron plate, and other stores, as well as small arms. Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Conestoga, USS; Eastport, USS; Foote, Andrew Hull; Fort Henry, Battle of; Gwin, William; Lexington, USS; Phelps, Seth Ledyard; Riverine Warfare; Shirk, James W.; Tennessee River; Tyler, USS

References Slagle, Jay. Ironclad Captain: Seth Ledyard Phelps and the U.S. Navy, 1841–1864. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1996. Smith, Myron J., Jr. The Timberclads in the Civil War: The Lexington, Conestoga and Tyler on the Western Waters. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008. Tucker, Spencer C. Andrew Foote: Civil War Admiral on Western Waters. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 22. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1908.

Philadelphia Naval Asylum Established in 1834 and located at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, the Philadelphia Naval Asylum (later the Naval Home) served both as a hospital and convalescent home for disabled and infirm sailors and as a naval school for midshipmen. In 1799 the Treasury Department began deducting 20 cents a month from the salaries of naval personnel. The accumulated money was to go toward establishing a “home” for convalescing and disabled sailors, although it was some time before the Navy Department decided to build such a facility, on the grounds of the Philadelphia Navy Yard. Located on 20 acres of land, Biddle Hall, the three-story granite and marble structure, was designed by noted architect William Strickland and completed in 1833. It is considered a fine example of Greek revival architecture. Biddle Hall had rooms for 180 residents, and apartments for officers and staff. Unfortunately, the asylum was on swampy ground next to the Schuylkill River and was thus quite susceptible to malaria. The staff of the asylum had a strange mix of missions, for into this setting, replete with habitual drunkards, were introduced in 1839 young and impressionable Navy

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midshipmen, who were assigned there for up to eight months to study for their examinations to passed midshipmen. The academic part of the asylum’s mission ended in 1845, with the establishment of the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis. Lieutenant Andrew H. Foote was among Civil War naval officers who had been assigned to the asylum in administrative functions earlier in their careers; his tenure there had a major impact on him as a naval reformer. The asylum’s name was changed to the Naval Home in 1889. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1971. In 1979, when it was determined that the Philadelphia facility could not be easily expanded and modernized, the Naval Home was relocated to Gulfport, Mississippi. The Philadelphia property was sold in 1988. A victim of arson in 2003, the building has since been restored and now houses luxury condominiums. Spencer C. Tucker See also Foote, Andrew Hull; Naval Academy, United States; Philadelphia Navy Yard

References Shippen, Edward. “Some Account of the Origin of the Naval Asylum at Philadelphia.” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 7 (1883): 135–138. Stockton, Charles H. Origins, History, Laws, and Regulations of the United States Naval Asylum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1886. Tucker, Spencer C. Andrew Foote: Civil War Admiral on Western Waters. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000.

Philadelphia Navy Yard U.S. Navy facility. Located on the Delaware River, the Philadelphia Navy Yard, the smallest in the United States, was purchased by the federal government in 1800 for $38,636. The site had been operating as a private shipyard since 1776. The U.S. Navy’s ship of the line Franklin was built at the yard in 1815, and 300 amphibious assault boats were constructed at the yard during the Mexican-American War (1846– 1848). The facility covered just more than 21 acres at the beginning of the Civil War. With 387 yards of waterfront, two ship houses, and two floating dry docks, the Philadelphia facility performed approximately one-third of the repair work for the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron. During the Civil War 15 ships were laid down at the yard, of which 8 were commissioned. Limited space in the confines of downtown Philadelphia compelled the navy to move the facility to League Island, located at the confluence of the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. In 1875 the last ship was built at the original yard, and it was sold at auction in 1876. The navy continued to use the facilities at League Island until the mid-1990s. William E. Whyte III

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See also Amphibious Warfare; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron

References Browning, Robert M., Jr. From Cape Charles to Cape Fear: The North Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1993. Canney, Donald L. Lincoln’s Navy: The Ships, Men and Organization, 1861–65. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998.

Pittsburg, USS One of seven City-class ironclads built for the U.S. Army in 1861. The ship was 175 feet in overall length and 51 feet, 2 inches, in beam. It had a 6-foot draft of hull and displaced 512 tons. Designed by Samuel R. Pook and built by James B. Eads, the Pittsburg entered service in January 1862. It saw action in the battles of Fort Donelson in Tennessee (February 12–16, 1862), Island Number 10 (February 28–April 8, 1862), and Plum Point Bend (May 10, 1862); in the Steele’s Bayou Expedition (March 14–26, 1863); against the Vicksburg batteries (April 16, 1863); and at Grand Gulf, Mississippi (April 29, 1863). The Pittsburg also participated in the Red River Campaign from March 10–May 22, 1864. It was sold out of the service in November 1865 and abandoned in June 1870. Gary D. Joiner See also Cairo-Class River Ironclads; Eads, James Buchanan; Fort Donelson, Battle of; Grand Gulf, Mississippi, Union Shelling of; Ironclads, Union; Island Number 10, Battle of; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Plum Point Bend, Battle of; Red River Campaign; Riverine Warfare; Steele’s Bayou Expedition; Vicksburg Campaign

References Joiner, Gary D. Mr. Lincoln’s Brown Water Navy: The Mississippi Squadron. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007. Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989.

Pittsburg Landing Start Date: March 1862 End Date: April 1862 In late February 1862, U.S. Army major general Ulysses S. Grant prepared to move against the important Confederate communications center of Corinth, Mississippi. His commander, Major General Henry W. Halleck, head of the Department of the Missouri, ordered him to await the arrival of reinforcements under Major General Don C. Buell.

518 |â•‡ Pittsburg Landing

On March 1, 1862, the Union timberclads Tyler and Lexington of Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote’s Mississippi Flotilla attacked Confederate troops who were fortifying Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River. The Union gunboats neutralized the Confederate artillery and landed troops, who captured six Confederate field pieces. In the exchange the Union side suffered 2 killed, 6 wounded, and 3 missing. Confederate losses were as many as 20 dead and 100 wounded. As Grant’s men camped at Pittsburg Landing to await Buell’s arrival from Nashville, commander of the Confederate Western Military Department, General Albert Sidney Johnston, struck first in a surprise assault early on April 6. The ensuing bloody contest for Grant’s bivouac came to be known as the Battle of Shiloh, named for the little church there. Unfortunately for Grant, he had not prepared defenses, choosing instead to spend the time drilling his men. The Confederates came close to victory as the Union troops were driven literally to the banks of the Tennessee. Grant kept his nerve, however, going personally among his men and urging them to hold. The Tyler and Lexington now played a key role, taking position about three quarters of a mile above Pittsburg Landing. As Lieutenant William Gwin, the commander of the gunboats, reported, the two “opened a heavy and well-directed fire” against the advancing right wing of the Confederate line and “in conjunction with our artillery on shore, succeeded in silencing their artillery, driving them back in confusion.” Johnston had been killed early in the fighting, and much of the fire from the gunboats went long, landing in the rear where his successor, General Pierre G. T. Beauregard, had his headquarters. This situation helped to bring Beauregard’s decision at dusk to call off the attack. The arrival of Buell’s 21,000 fresh Union troops that night allowed Grant to go on the offensive and win the battle the next day. The cost of the Battle of Shiloh was high. The 10,600 Confederate and 13,000 Union casualties made it the bloodiest day in the history of North American warfare to that point. The ability of the Union troops to cross the river, bring in supplies, and evacuate wounded was due to the efforts of the U.S. Navy, the role of which is often overlooked in accounts of the battle. Grant, however, had no doubt as to the navy’s role. He claimed that the two gunboats “effectively checked further [Confederate] progress.” Spencer C. Tucker See also Foote, Andrew Hull; Gwin, William; Lexington, USS; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Riverine Warfare; Shirk, James W.; Tennessee River; Timberclads; Tyler, USS

References Smith, Myron J., Jr. The Timberclads in the Civil War: The Lexington, Conestoga and Tyler on the Western Waters. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008. Sword, Wiley. Shiloh: Bloody April. Dayton, OH: Morningside Bookshop, 1988. Tucker, Spencer C. Andrew Foote: Civil War Admiral on Western Waters. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000.

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Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 21. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1908.

Plum Point Bend, Battle of Event Date: May 10, 1862 The Battle of Plum Point Bend (May 10, 1862) on the Mississippi River above Fort Pillow was the war’s first real engagement between naval squadrons. Commodore Charles H. Davis, the Union commander in the battle, characterized it as “a smart affair.” In May 1862 the Union flotilla lay above Fort Pillow, unable to pass by that place and employing long-range mortar fire to try to shell the fort into submission. An attempt to take Fort Pillow had been stymied when the commander of the Department of the Missouri, Major General Henry W. Halleck, decided to remove the great bulk of Union Army troops for his own campaign against Corinth. At the same time, Confederate deserters had warned that the River Defense Fleet would attempt to engage the Union squadron upriver, and a Confederate sortie on May 8 should have served as confirmation of this. Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote, who turned over his command to Davis on May 9, had taken the precaution of ordering the gunboats positioned so they faced downstream, but no lookouts had been posted downriver. Foote claimed that the flotilla was prepared for a fight, but that was not true. The Union gunboats were in two divisions: three on the Tennessee bank and four on the Arkansas side of the river. Since mid-April the flotilla had followed the same routine of a gunboat daily towing one or more mortar boats to just above Craigshead Point. Guarded there by the gunboat, the mortar boats would then fire shells across the point toward Fort Pillow. At 6:00 a.m. on May 10, Union mortar boat No. 16, with a crew of 14 men commanded by Second Master Thomas B. Gregory, was in position along with its covering gunboat, Lieutenant Rodger Stembel’s Cincinnati, the crew of which was nonchalantly going through its usual morning routine. The Union mortar boat had just fired its fifth shell when, shortly after 7:00 a.m., eight Confederate gunboats suddenly appeared around Craigshead Point. These were the General Bragg, General Sterling Price, General Van Dorn, General Sumter, General Thompson, General Beauregard, Colonel Lovell, and the flagship Little Rebel. Confederate captain James E. Montgomery hoped to cut out or destroy the mortar boat and/or its covering gunboat. The two seemed vulnerable, for they were unsuspected targets separated from the remainder of the Union flotilla.

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The Confederate steamers made straight for the Cincinnati as its crew desperately struggled to get it under way. Although the General Bragg took a broadside at only 50 yards from the Cincinnati, it continued on and crashed into the Union gunboat. Stembel swung the bow of his ship so that the impact was at an angle, but it still tore a large hole in the Cincinnati’s starboard quarter just abaft the armor plate, flooding its magazine. As the General Bragg wrenched free, another Union broadside tore into the Confederate ship, putting it hors de combat. The General Bragg then drifted downstream out of action. Both the General Sterling Price and General Sumter also rammed the Cincinnati. The General Sterling Price struck the Union gunboat on its port side near the stern, carrying away the rudder, sternpost, and part of the stern. This blow threw the stern of the Cincinnati around so that it caught the entire force of the General Sumter, which had run at the Union gunboat at full speed. The Cincinnati was sinking rapidly, and Confederate sharpshooters began to pick off members of its crew, among them Commander Stembel, who had recklessly exposed himself on deck and now fell badly wounded. First Master William R. Hoel of the Cincinnati did manage, with the aid of two Union tugs that appeared, to get the gunboat to the shore, where it sank in 12 feet of water. The crew then made its way to the upper deck with Commander Stembel and two other wounded men, and watched the rest of the action. When the first shots rang out, the remaining Union gunboats were at anchor with hardly any steam up. Finally they got under way, with the Mound City and Carondelet in the lead, followed by the slower Benton and then the Pittsburg. The other Union gunboats did not arrive in time to take part in the battle. As the Confederate ram Van Dorn passed by to engage the Mound City, it sent two 32-pounder shots as well as several volleys of musket fire into mortar boat No. 16. The larger shot passed completely through the unarmored mortar boat, and it was a miracle that no one aboard was injured. The crewmen had lowered the mortar’s elevation and, by firing with reduced charges and dangerously short fuses, managed to burst shells over the Confederate warships. Even after No. 16 was hit, Gregory’s men continued to fire. They expended 52 shells that day, including those fired before the battle. The Van Dorn then rammed the Mound City. The Union gunboat received only a glancing blow, but the impact tore away part of the Union gunboat’s bow, and the vessel began rapidly taking on water. Commander Augustus H. Kilty managed to get off a punishing broadside before he grounded the Mound City to prevent it from sinking. It had only one man wounded. With the Confederates seemingly enjoying the upper hand, the arrival of the more powerful Union ships tipped the balance decidedly in favor of the Union, and Montgomery signaled a retirement. As the Confederate vessels fled downriver, a rifled shell from the Carondelet smashed into the General Sumter’s boilers,

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releasing a great cloud of steam, which its crew desperately attempted to escape. Rifled rounds from the Union flagship Benton also shattered the boilers of first the Colonel Levell and then the Van Dorn, disabling both. During the hour-long battle the Union side suffered only 4 wounded, 1 of whom soon died; deserters later reported up to 108 Confederate dead. But apart from the heavy personnel losses, the South had achieved a tactical victory. Its Mississippi flotilla had temporarily disabled two of the much more powerful Union ironclads. Refloated, they had to be sent to Mound City for repairs. In his report to General Pierre G. T. Beauregard, Captain Montgomery boasted that Union forces would “never penetrate further down the Mississippi” unless they were to “greatly increase their force.” Davis, meanwhile, informed Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles that there was every indication that the Confederates would “come up again.” Davis urged that the Union rams being readied upriver now be pressed into service. These Ellet Rams proved to be very important in the next engagement between the two flotillas, at Memphis. As it worked out, neither commander’s prediction proved accurate. Spencer C. Tucker See also Benton, USS; Cairo-Class River Ironclads; Carondelet, USS; Cincinnati, USS; Davis, Charles Henry; Flotilla; Foote, Andrew Hull; Fort Pillow, Tennessee; Kilty, Augustus H.; Memphis, First Battle of; Mississippi River; Mississippi River Defense Fleet; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Mortar Boats; Mound City, USS; Mound City Naval Station; Pittsburg, USS; Ram Fleet, U.S.; Riverine Warfare; Stembel, Roger Nelson; Welles, Gideon

References Milligan, John D. Gunboats Down the Mississippi. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1965. Porter, David Dixon. The Naval History of the Civil War. 1886; reprint, New York: Dover, 1998. Slagle, Jay. Ironclad Captain: Seth Ledyard Phelps and the U.S. Navy, 1841–1864. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1996. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Plymouth, Battle of See Albemarle Sound, Battle of

Pook Turtles See Cairo-class River Ironclads

522 |â•‡ Poor, Charles Henry

Poor, Charles Henry Birth Date: June 11, 1808 Death Date: November 5, 1882 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on June 11, 1808, Charles Henry Poor received a midshipman’s warrant on March 1, 1825. He was promoted to passed midshipman on June 4, 1831; to lieutenant on December 22, 1835; and to commander on September 14, 1855. At the beginning of 1861, Poor had been in the navy for 35 years: some 19 in sea service, 10 years in shore assignments, and nearly 5 years awaiting orders in a navy with too many officers for available billets. At the beginning of the Civil War, Commander Poor had charge of the sailing sloop St. Louis. Following the secession of Florida from the Union, Poor was stationed off Pensacola from February to April, when he was assigned to the Gulf Blockading Squadron and given command of the screw sloop Brooklyn, which took up station off Pass a l’Outre at the mouth of the Mississippi River on May 26. The Brooklyn was off station on June 30 when the first Confederate commerce raider, the Sumter, commanded by Raphael Semmes, escaped from the mouth of the Mississippi. Crewmen on the Brooklyn spotted the raider’s telltale smoke, and Poor brought his ship about and gave chase. In one of the memorable chases of the war, the Brooklyn was gaining and Semmes was being forced to jettison nonessential items, including a boat howitzer, when a fresh wind allowed Semmes to use his sails as well as steam, and his ship was able to pull away and escape. Relieved of his command in October because of this incident, Poor was exonerated by a court of inquiry in November, but received only relatively unimportant naval assignments thereafter during the war. In December 1861 Poor was assigned to Fort Monroe, Virginia, as an ordnance officer. On March 9, 1862, the day after the Confederate ironclad Virginia sortied from Norfolk and sank the sailing sloop Cumberland and sailing frigate Congress, Poor volunteered for temporary duty on the screw frigate Roanoke. On March 20 he was given command of the chartered steamer Illinois, with instructions to ram the Virginia if it again sortied and was in suitable position in Hampton Roads. That opportunity did not present itself, and following the Confederates’ abandonment of Norfolk and the scuttling of the Virginia, Poor returned to ordnance duties at Fort Monroe. Poor was promoted to captain on July 16, 1862, the result of a recommendation by an advisory board; Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles found the promotion “most objectionable.” On awaiting orders status until September, Poor assumed command of the side-wheel steam frigate Saranac in the Pacific Squadron. Poor was promoted to commodore on January 2, 1863. On awaiting orders status from June to November 1865, Poor then assumed command of the naval station at Mound City, Illinois, and held that post until the

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spring of 1868. He was promoted to rear admiral on September 20, 1868. Poor commanded the Washington Navy Yard during nine months in 1869 and then commanded the North Atlantic Squadron during 1869–1870. He retired from the navy on June 9, 1870, and died in Washington, D.C., on November 5, 1882. Spencer C. Tucker See also Brooklyn, USS; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Fort Monroe, Virginia; Gulf Blockading Squadron; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Mississippi River; Mound City Naval Station; Norfolk Navy Yard; Pensacola Navy Yard; Roanoke, USS; Semmes, Raphael; Sumter, CSS; Virginia, CSS; Washington Navy Yard; Welles, Gideon

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Porter, David Dixon. The Naval History of the Civil War. 1886; reprint, New York: Dover, 1998. Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Pope, John, Jr. Birth Date: December 17, 1798 Death Date: January 14, 1876 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Sandwich, Massachusetts, on December 17, 1798, John Pope Jr. moved with his family to Orrington (now in the state of Maine). He received a midshipman’s warrant on May 30, 1816. Pope was promoted to lieutenant on April 28, 1826; to commander on April 15, 1843; and to captain on September 14, 1855. Pope commanded the East India Squadron during 1855–1856. At the beginning of 1861, Pope had served in the navy for 44 years: 20 years at sea, 12 years in assignments ashore, and 12 years awaiting orders in a navy with too many officers for available assignments. In June 1861 Pope assumed command of the screw sloop Richmond and was ordered to join the Gulf Blockading Squadron, proceeding there by way of the West Indies in the hopes of locating the Confederate commerce raider Sumter. Joining the Gulf Coast Squadron in mid-September, Pope was ordered to take command of a squadron of four ships and move up the Mississippi River to the Head of Passes, where the river divided into several channels for its final run to the sea. Pope had the Richmond (flagship), the side-wheeler gunboat Water Witch, and the sailing sloops Preble and Vincennes. The coal and storeship Nightingale provided logistics support.

524 |â•‡ Porter, David Dixon

Early in the morning of October 12, the Confederate steam ram Manassas attacked the squadron and rammed the Richmond, which was then taking on coal from the schooner Joseph H. Toone. The Union ship was seriously damaged below the waterline, but its pumps were able to keep it afloat. With the Manassas damaged, all the Union ships fled downriver. Although all escaped, save the Joseph H. Toone, which was captured with its 15 tons of coal, both the Richmond and the Vincennes temporarily grounded, and the Richmond was forced to jettison 16 of its 18 guns and a considerable amount of shot in order to break free. The episode proved to be a major embarrassment for the U.S. Navy and was soon known in the Northern press as “Pope’s Run.” Within two weeks, Pope had asked to be relieved for reasons of health, a request that was speedily granted. Placed on the retired list on December 21, 1861, he was one of a number of captains on the retired list advanced to commodore in early 1863, with rank backdated to July 16, 1862. Pope was prize commissioner for Boston, Massachusetts, during 1863–1865 and a lighthouse inspector during 1865–1869. Pope died in Dorchester, Massachusetts, on January 14, 1876. Spencer C. Tucker See also Gulf Blockading Squadron; Head of Passes, Battle of; Manassas, CSS; Mississippi River; Richmond, USS; Sumter, CSS


Pope’s Run See Head of Passes, Battle of

Porter, David Dixon Birth Date: June 8, 1813 Death Date: February 13, 1891 U.S. Navy admiral. Born in Chester, Pennsylvania, on June 8, 1813, David D. Porter was the 3rd of 10 children of Commodore David Porter, who had distinguished himself in the War of 1812. Porter’s adopted brother was David G. Farragut. Porter

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first went to sea with his father at age 10. After brief service in 1826 as a midshipman serving under his father in the Mexican Navy, during which time he was wounded and briefly a prisoner of war of the Spanish, he secured a midshipman’s warrant in the U.S. Navy on February 2, 1829, and was advanced to passed midshipman on July 8, 1835. Attached to the Coastal Survey from 1836 to 1840, he was promoted to lieutenant on February 27, 1841. Routine assignments included service in the Mediterranean. Porter distinguished himself during the Mexican-American War (1846– 1848), especially in operations against Tabasco. Frustrated by the slow rate of advancement in the U.S. Navy, Porter Rear Admiral David D. Porter was one of the most imnportant naval leaders of the took a leave of absence to captain mer- Civil War. Opinionated, outspoken, and chant vessels. egotistical, Porter commanded the MissisReturning to duty with the navy in sippi Squadron and then the North Atlantic 1855, he received command of the Blockading Squadron. He worked effectively steamer Supply and then served ashore with generals Ulysses S. Grant and William T. at the Portsmouth Navy Yard during Sherman in operations against Vicksburg and with Brigadier General Alfred Terry against 1857–1860. He was on the verge of a Fort Fisher. (National Archives) second leave of absence from the navy when the secessionist crisis occurred. At the beginning of 1861, Porter had served in the navy for some 30 years: 18 years afloat, 8 years in assignments ashore, and 4 years awaiting orders in a navy with too many officers for available assignments. On April 1, 1861, Porter received command of the powerful side-wheel frigate Powhatan. He circumvented both Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles and commander of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Captain Andrew H. Foote in carrying out Secretary of War William H. Seward’s plan to relieve Fort Pickens in Florida. This removed the Powhatan from participation in the effort to relieve Fort Sumter but probably did not in itself scuttle that operation. Despite his having disobeyed orders, Porter received promotion to commander on April 22. The Powhatan then conducted operations in the Gulf of Mexico. Early in 1862 Porter returned to Washington, where he convinced Welles and Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gustavus V. Fox that bombardment of the two Confederate forts on the lower Mississippi River by a flotilla of mortar boats would be essential to the

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success of a plan to capture the port of New Orleans. He pledged that both forts would be rendered ineffective by shelling from 13-inch mortars within 48 hours. Receiving command of the mortar flotilla under the overall command of Flag Officer David G. Farragut, his adopted brother and commander of the West Gulf Blockading Squadron, Porter carried out a six-day-long bombardment of Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, which however failed to reduce the forts. Farragut then ran past the forts with the ships of his squadron, while Porter supplied gunfire support. With the two forts then cut off by the Union ships and troops, Porter took their surrender on April 28. On October 15, 1862, promoted to acting rear admiral, Porter assumed command of the Mississippi Flotilla, now designated the Mississippi Squadron. Naval activity then sharply increased with the initiation of joint operations against Vicksburg. In January 1863 Porter helped secure Arkansas Post. Porter worked closely and effectively with Major General Ulysses S. Grant and Brigadier General William T. Sherman. Porter was rewarded for his role in the surrender of Vicksburg with advancement to permanent rear admiral over many other more senior officers, with date of rank of July 4, 1863. In the spring of 1864 Porter commanded the naval phase of the Red River Expedition, supporting army troops ashore under Major General Nathaniel P. Banks in an effort to capture Shreveport. Banks and Porter did not get along, and low water levels in the Red, in part caused by Confederate efforts, plagued Porter’s operations. Despite myriad problems, Porter succeeded in extraditing his ships and was not blamed for the fiasco, which was one of the great military blunders of the war. In September 1864 Porter assumed command of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, and that December he assembled the most powerful naval force to that point in U.S. history: 61 warships, including 5 ironclads, mounting a total of 635 guns for an attack on Fort Fisher, in an effort to close off the port of Wilmington to Confederate blockade-runners. The initial assault went poorly, thanks to ineffective cooperation on the part of the commander of the Union Army contingent, Major General Benjamin F. Butler. Union general in chief Ulysses S. Grant then sacked Butler and appointed Brigadier General Alfred H. Terry, who established an excellent working relationship with Porter. In a textbook amphibious operation, Fort Fisher fell to the Union army and navy in January 1865. In April 1865 Porter operated on the James River, forcing the Confederate commander to scuttle his squadron there and conducting President Abraham Lincoln on a tour of Richmond. Following the war, Porter became superintendent of the Naval Academy, where he remained until 1869 and introduced extensive reforms. Promoted to vice admiral in July 1866, he was advanced to admiral in August 1870. He then served as head of the Board of Inspection until his death in Washington, D.C., on February 13, 189l. Spencer C. Tucker

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See also Amphibious Warfare; Blockade-Runners; Brooklyn Navy Yard; Coast Survey, U.S.; Farragut, David Glasgow; Foote, Andrew Hull; Fort Fisher Campaign; Fort Hindman, Battle of; Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s Run Past; Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, Relief Efforts and Beginning of the Civil War; Fox, Gustavus Vasa; James River; Lincoln, Abraham; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Mortar Boats; Naval Academy, United States; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Portsmouth Navy Yard; Powhatan, USS; Red River; Red River Campaign; Richmond, Virginia; Riverine Warfare; Vicksburg Campaign; Welles, Gideon; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Hearn, Chester. David Dixon Porter: The Civil War Years. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1996. Melia, Tamara M. “David Dixon Porter: Fighting Sailor.” In Captains of the Old Steam Navy, edited by James C. Bradford, 227–249. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1986. Robinson, Charles M., III. Hurricane of Fire: The Union Assault on Fort Fisher. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998. Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001.

Porter, John Luke Birth Date: September 19, 1813 Death Date: December 14, 1893 Confederate naval officer and naval constructor. Born in Portsmouth, Virginia, on September 19, 1813, John Luke Porter began studying ship design at an early age in the numerous shipyards of eastern Virginia. Following his father’s death in 1831, Porter supported his family by working as a carpenter in local yards. In the early 1840s, Porter moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he designed and built ships for the U.S. Navy. During his time at Pittsburgh, Porter produced plans for an ironclad warship, although the navy was uninterested in his proposal. In 1847 Porter failed to pass the examination for naval constructors, although he remained active in maritime construction. By 1857 he had passed the exam and received an appointment as a U.S. naval constructor. Porter opposed secession, believing that the Confederacy could not achieve independence in the teeth of Union opposition. Despite these sentiments, Porter resigned his position with the U.S. Navy when his native Virginia joined the Confederacy. Shortly thereafter Porter became naval constructor at the Norfolk (Gosport) Navy Yard, which Virginia had recently seized from the U.S. Navy. Although holding this post, Porter did not receive formal appointment as the South’s naval

528 |â•‡ Porter, John Luke

constructor until January 1864. He and his two assistants reported directly to Confederate secretary of the navy Stephen R. Mallory. A strong believer in ironclad warships, Mallory hoped that such vessels might be able to defeat the Union naval blockade and even carry out operations against Northern ports. In early June 1861 he directed Lieutenant John M. Brooke to design an ironclad, and Brooke soon came up with a plan for a casemated vessel with inclined sides. On June 23 Brooke, Mallory, Porter, and Chief Engineer William P. Williamson from the Norfolk Navy Yard met and approved the concept. But with no engines of the size required available in the Confederacy, Williamson suggested that they employ the hull, engines, and boilers on the former U.S. steam frigate Merrimack. Brooke and Porter agreed, and on July 11 Mallory ordered work to go forward on rebuilding the Merrimack as an ironclad. The rebuilt ship was commissioned CSS Virginia on February 17, 1862. Later Brooke and Porter quarreled over who deserved credit for this most famous of all Confederate ironclads. Porter also designed gunboats. These, while small, rendered effective service but were employed mostly as auxiliaries. Porter is chiefly known for his ironclad designs, however. Problems abounded in Southern ironclad construction, including a lack of iron plate and the absence of reliable steam engines. Eventually Mallory and Porter settled on smaller, shallow-draft ironclads to defend Confederate harbors and rivers. The first of these were the Porter-designed six-ship Richmond class of ironclad rams: the Chicora, North Carolina, Palmetto State, Raleigh, Richmond, and Savannah. Porter also designed the two-ship Columbia class of the Columbia and Texas. The Tennessee, one of the most celebrated Confederate ironclads of the war, was a modified Columbia. Porter also designed the Nashville, a side-wheeler, to take advantage of available riverboat machinery, and he designed twin-screw, shallow-draft ironclads. Patterned after the Richmond class, these included the Milledgeville class of four ships and the Wilmington. Only the Milledgeville was ever launched, and none of the ships were ever commissioned. Other shallow-draft Porter-designed Confederate ironclads were the Albemarle class of the Albemarle, Neuse, and another unnamed ship never commissioned. Porter also designed a lengthened four-gun version of the Albemarle class, the Fredericksburg, which served in the James River flotilla. Only one ship, CSS Missouri, was completed of a Porter-designed center-wheel class of ironclads. With opportunities for former Confederates limited after the war, Porter accepted a succession of short-term jobs until 1878, when the Norfolk Navy Yard accepted his bid for employment. By 1883 he had been made superintendent of the Norfolk County Ferries, a position that allowed him to rebuild his family’s finances. Porter retired from the position in 1888 and died in Portsmouth, Virginia, on December 14, 1893. Charles Hughes Williams and Spencer C. Tucker See also Albemarle, CSS; Blockade of the Confederacy; Brooke, John Mercer; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Ironclads, Confederate; James River Squadron, CSA; Mallory, Stephen

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Russell; Mississippi, CSS; Nashville, CSS, Ironclad; Navy, CSA; Neuse, CSS; Norfolk Navy Yard; Raleigh, CSS; Richmond, CSS; Tennessee, CSS; Virginia, CSS

References Flanders, Alan B. John L. Porter: Naval Constructor of Destiny. White Stone, VA: Brandyland, 2000. Register of Officers of the Confederate States Navy, 1861–1865: As Compiled and Revised by the Office of Naval Records and Library, United States Navy Department, 1931, from All Available Data. With a new introduction by John M. Carroll. Mattituck, NY: J. M. Carroll, 1981. [Originally published by the Naval Record and Library, U.S. Navy Department, in 1898 and revised in 1931.] Still, William N., Jr. Iron Afloat: The Story of the Confederate Armorclads. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1985. Still, William N., Jr., ed. The Confederate Navy: The Ships, Men and Organization, 1861–65. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997.

Porter, William David Birth Date: March 10, 1809 Death Date: May 1, 1864 U.S. Navy officer. William D. Porter was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on March 10, 1809, and raised in Chester, Pennsylvania. He was the son of Commodore David Porter, a hero of the War of 1812; the elder brother of future Rear Admiral David D. Porter; and the adoptive brother of future admiral David G. Farragut. Porter went to sea at age 12 and was appointed a midshipman on January 1, 1823. He was promoted to passed midshipman on March 29, 1829; to lieutenant on December 31, 1833; and to commander on September 14, 1855. At the beginning of 1861, Porter had been in the navy for some 37 years: 12 years in sea service, 5 years in assignments ashore, and 20 years awaiting orders in a navy with too many officers for available assignments. At the start of the Civil War, Porter was commanding the sloop St. Mary’s. Ordered to St. Louis, Missouri, he served in the Western Gunboat Flotilla. Given command of the ironclad New Era, he renamed his ship the Essex, after his father’s command in the War of 1812. Porter participated in the attack on Fort Henry, Tennessee, on February 6, 1862. In that attack, the Essex took 15 hits from the Confederate shore battery, one of which penetrated the middle boiler, killing or wounding 32 men. The escaping steam scalded and nearly blinded Porter. Porter recovered and supervised the rebuilding of his ship. He then commanded the Essex against the Confederate ironclad Arkansas in the attack at Vicksburg on July 22, 1862. The Essex attacked the same ship above Baton Rouge on August 6, 1862, and Porter took credit for the Confederate ironclad’s destruction, although its engines had broken down, and it was scuttled by its own crew. Promoted to

530 |â•‡ Port Hudson, Louisiana, Action at

commodore on July 16, 1862, Porter was detached from the Essex and held no further commands afloat. He died of heart disease in New York City on May 1, 1864. Gary D. Joiner See also Arkansas, CSS; Baton Rouge, Battle of; Essex, USS; Farragut, David Glasgow; Fort Henry, Battle of; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Porter, David Dixon; Riverine Warfare; Vicksburg Campaign

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Joiner, Gary D. Mr. Lincoln’s Brown Water Navy: The Mississippi Squadron. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007. Shea, William L., and Terrence J. Winschel. Vicksburg Is the Key: The Struggle U.S. Navy Captain William David Porter was for the Mississippi River. Lincoln: Univerthe elder brother of Rear Admiral David D. sity of Nebraska Press, 2003. Porter. During the Civil War he commanded Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Comthe ironclad Essex in the Mississippi modores and Admirals: A Biographical Squadron. Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001. West, Richard S., Jr. The Second Admiral: A Life of David Dixon Porter. New York: Coward-McCann, 1937.

Port Hudson, Louisiana, Action at Event Date: March 14, 1863 Following the Union capture of New Orleans in April 1862, Vicksburg and Port Hudson were the only remaining Confederate strongholds on the Mississippi River. Securing both locations was critical to the Union strategy of controlling the Mississippi and dividing the Confederacy. Situated on the river some 25 miles above Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Port Hudson was a formidable bastion. Like Vicksburg, Mississippi, some 110 miles north on the river, Port Hudson was situated on

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high bluffs overlooking a sharp, 150-degree bend of the river, and was surrounded by bayous. Following the loss of New Orleans, the Confederates strengthened Port Hudson, placing 15 heavy guns on the river bluffs both at the bend and on the east bank south of the city. Major General Franklin Gardner commanded some 16,000 defenders. In early March 1863, Union major general Nathaniel P. Banks and West Gulf Blockading Squadron commander Rear Admiral David G. Farragut agreed to mount a joint attack on Port Hudson, with Banks providing 25,000 troops from Baton Rouge. Banks departed on March 7. At Prophet’s Island, five miles south of Port Hudson, Farragut assembled a powerful force consisting of the side-wheeler frigate Mississippi; steam sloops Hartford, Richmond, and Monongahela; and the gunboats Albatross, Genessee, and Kineo. Farragut planned to run past the shore batteries, bringing them under fire from mortar boats and the ironclad Essex at Prophet’s Island. Farragut coupled each of his larger ships with a lighter gunboat lashed on the port aft quarter. Farragut reasoned that because the Confederate shore batteries were on the east bank, the larger ships would protect the smaller ones, and should one of the two ships become disabled, the other could assist it. The exception was the side-wheeler Mississippi, which brought up the rear alone. To provide additional firepower, Farragut ordered boat howitzers mounted on the rigging platforms of the mizzenmasts of the sloops. The Union ships made their run on the night of March 14 but discovered an unwelcome surprise in the form of a series of locomotive headlights, which the Confederates had placed along the eastern bank. Turned on, the lights silhouetted the ships and allowed the shore gunners to deliver an accurate fire. Although the first two Union ships, the lashed-together Hartford and Albatross, made it past safely, the next two—the Richmond and Genessee—did not fare as well. A Confederate shot struck the Richmond, piercing its steam drum and causing it to drift back out of the battle. In the third pair of ships, the Kineo, secured to the port side of the Monongahela, took a shot that lodged between its rudderpost and sternpost. The Monongahela also had its rudder damaged, and the two ships then went aground. Both ships got free but then drifted back downriver out of the battle. The last ship in line, the Mississippi, commanded by Captain Melancton Smith, ran aground while approaching Thomas Point. Unable to free his ship, which then came under heavy Confederate fire, Smith ordered the crew to abandon ship. The men first spiked the guns, destroyed the engines, and then set the ship on fire. It finally drifted downstream completely ablaze before blowing up. Out of its 297 crewmen, 25 were killed, and 39 were reported missing. Only the Hartford and Albatross reached Waterloo, Louisiana, above Port Hudson. Much of the responsibility for the failure of this enterprise rested with the dilatory Banks. Although his forces probed the Confederate defenses, they failed to

532 |â•‡ Port Hudson, Louisiana, Siege of

mount an attack of sufficient force that was timed to occupy the Confederate gunners. Learning of Farragut’s failure, Banks then called off his own attack. The failed operation clearly showed the necessity of more effective army-navy cooperation. Spencer C. Tucker See also Anaconda Strategy; Essex, USS; Farragut, David Glasgow; Hartford, USS; Mississippi, USS; Mississippi River; Mortar Boats; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; Port Hudson, Louisiana, Siege of; Richmond, USS; Riverine Warfare; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Hewitt, Lawrence Lee. Port Hudson: Confederate Bastion on the Mississippi. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vols. 19 and 20. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1905.

Port Hudson, Louisiana, Siege of Start Date: May 21, 1863 End Date: July 9, 1863 Taking the Confederate strongholds of Vicksburg and Port Hudson on the Mississippi River was a major Union war aim in order to split the Confederacy along that river. Some 25 miles above Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Port Hudson was situated on high bluffs overlooking a sharp, 150-degree bend of the river and surrounded by bayous. In May, Major General Franklin Gardner commanded some 7,500 defenders manning defensive works that included some 15 heavy guns controlling the river approaches, and another 15 guns on the land side. In March 1863 the U.S. Navy side-wheeler frigate Mississippi was destroyed during Rear Admiral David G. Farragut’s unsuccessful attempt to pass Port Hudson, an action poorly supported by Union troops under Major General Nathaniel P. Banks. Union forces tried once again in May. As a preliminary to a ground assault by Banks’s 30,000-man Army of the Gulf, U.S. Navy ships in the river shelled Port Hudson during May 8–10. Banks then closed off Port Hudson from the land side on May 21. Banks planned a ground attack supported by the large guns aboard the Union ships in the river, but the inept Union general mounted a series of uncoordinated attacks that did not make full use of his available manpower. The Union assault opened at dawn on May 27 with a failed attack on the Confederate left, above Port Hudson. Two regiments of African American troops from Louisiana, the first such

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troops to be employed by the Union side in the war, participated in the attack. About 2:15 p.m. the Union left attacked but was rebuffed, as was a still later advance by the Union center. The attackers sustained nearly 2,000 casualties to only 250–275 for the defenders. Claiming insufficient resources, Banks then settled for a siege, during the course of which he received some 10,000 reinforcements. Banks was determined to try again. On the morning of June 13, Union troops and ships in the river opened a furious bombardment of the Confederate works, firing shells at the rate of about one per second. After an hour, the firing ceased, and Banks sent a note to Gardner demanding his surrender. Although his men were low on ammunition and short of supplies, Gardner refused. Banks ordered the shelling resumed and planned an assault for the next day in the form of a probe of the Confederate right, with the main attack on the center. Early the next morning, a Union division assaulted the large fort in the Confederate center known as the Priest Cap. Although some of the Union troops breached the Confederate lines, they lacked sufficient strength to exploit the situation. Repeated follow-on attacks also failed, with the Union suffering as many as 1,805 casualties. With his subordinate commanders objecting to a continuation, Banks agreed to a halt. Meanwhile, the Union side employed zigzag trenches to snake closer to the Confederate positions. They also tried mining the Confederate lines, but the defenders sank a countermine and used explosives to collapse the Union shaft. The distances were sufficiently short for both sides to employ hand grenades. Banks planned a third attack for July 7, but bad weather caused it to be postponed. News was then received of the fall of Vicksburg to the Union on July 4. This event rendered Port Hudson untenable, and Gardner opened negotiations on July 8 and formally surrendered the next day. The siege had lasted 48 days. Although some Confederates escaped through Union lines on the night of July 8–9, about 6,400 surrendered. The Confederates had suffered 146 killed and 447 wounded. Operations at Port Hudson claimed Union losses of more than 708 dead, 3,336 wounded, and 319 missing. Another 4,000 to 5,000 were incapacitated by heatstroke or sickness. Throughout the siege, Union ships and mortar boats had provided effective gunfire support. The entire Mississippi was now under Union control, and the Confederacy was split. A week later, a steamer from St. Louis arrived at New Orleans with a cargo of midwestern products. President Abraham Lincoln summed up, “The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea.” Spencer C. Tucker See also Anaconda Strategy; Farragut, David Glasgow; Lincoln, Abraham; Mississippi, USS; Mississippi River; Mortar Boats; Port Hudson, Louisiana, Action at; Riverine Warfare; Vicksburg Campaign

534 |â•‡ Port Royal Sound, Battle of

References Hewitt, Lawrence Lee. Port Hudson: Confederate Bastion on the Mississippi. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987. Milligan, John D. Gunboats Down the Mississippi. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1965. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Port Royal Sound, Battle of Start Date: November 5, 1861 End Date: November 7, 1861 Following their capture of Hatteras Inlet, Union forces, now under Captain Samuel F. Du Pont, prepared to assault Port Royal, South Carolina. Reflecting the strength of the Confederate defenses, the force assembled for the attack on Port Royal was considerably larger than that employed against Hatteras. On October 29, 1861, flying his flag in the screw frigate Wabash, Du Pont departed Hampton Roads with 50 ships, the largest task force under single command to that point in U.S. history. The day before, he had sent on ahead to Tybee Bar, off Savannah, 25 sloops converted into coal ships for the squadron, escorted by the sailing sloop Vandalia. Du Pont’s task force transported 16,000 army troops commanded by Brigadier General Thomas W. Sherman. The Northern press had reported the assembly of the expeditionary force, and Southern authorities had a good idea of its intended target. On November 1 the Union expeditionary force was struck by a severe storm as it approached Port Royal. Near hurricane-force winds scattered the ships, and the mission appeared in jeopardy, but the wind soon died, and the ships gradually rendezvoused off Port Royal. Two transports had been lost, but all aboard save seven marines were saved. On the morning of November 4 the Wabash and 25 other ships arrived off the bar, 10 miles east of Port Royal. Others soon came up, and Du Pont decided to proceed with the operation. The Confederates had removed all the navigation buoys, but Union ships quickly located the channel, which was marked by buoys. Du Pont then ordered in his lighter gunboats and transports. The Union gunboats then drove off three small Confederate gunboats under Flag Officer Josiah Tattnall and escorted the transports into the roadstead beyond range of the Confederate forts, where they anchored for the night. Two Confederate earthworks, Fort Beauregard on the southern tip of Phillips Island at Bay Point and Fort Walker on the northern end of Hilton Head Island, guarded the harbor entrance. Together they mounted 43 guns. Unfortunately for the Confederates, the 2.2-mile width of the entrance of the inlet precluded effective artillery coverage of it.

Port Royal Sound, Battle ofâ•‡ | 535

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The next morning, under the supervision of Commander John Rodgers, four of the Union gunboats conducted a reconnaissance in force, drawing sufficient fire from the forts to learn their strength. Then, with pilots having determined that there was sufficient water for the Wabash to cross the bar, Du Pont ordered in the flagship, followed by the side-wheeler frigate Susquehanna, the steam warships Atlantic and Vanderbilt, and the transports. The original plan had been for a

536 |â•‡ Port Royal Sound, Battle of

joint army-navy attack, but with significant army equipment having been lost in the storm, and after conferring with his subordinates, Du Pont decided on a naval effort alone. Because of this decision and the estimate that it would take at least several days to reduce the forts from long range, all agreed that, despite the risk of grounding, the Union warships, and especially the powerful 44-gun Wabash, should engage the forts at close range. Because the distance between forts Beauregard and Walker precluded engaging both simultaneously except by the largest rifled guns, Du Pont decided to attack one at a time. Fort Walker, regarded as the more powerful, was the first. It mounted 23 guns, but only 13 of these were on the sea face, the remainder being for land defense. Fort Beauregard contained 20 guns; 13 of them commanded the water approaches, but only 7 faced the channel. This, the tide, and the presence of the Confederate flotilla all determined the timing and mode of the Union attack. At about 9:00 a.m. Tattnall steamed out with his small flotilla to exchange long-range fire with the Union ships. He then retired, followed by some Union ships, which also dueled with the Confederate shore batteries for about 45 minutes, although with little consequence for either side. Then at 3:30 p.m., Du Pont ordered a signal hoisted for the ships to get under way for the attack. But as the ships stood in, both the Wabash and Susquehanna grounded on Fishing Rip Shoals. It took two hours to get the big ships free, forcing Du Pont to cancel the attack for that day. The following day was too windy, leading to another postponement. At 8:30 a.m. on November 7, the Union ships again got under way, and an hour later Du Pont in the Wabash led nine warships into Port Royal Sound. Following the flagship were the frigate Susquehanna; the sloops Mohican, Seminole, and Pawnee; the gunboats Unadilla, Ottawa, and Pembina; and the Isaac Smith towing the sailing sloop Vandalia. The ships kept in mid-channel and exchanged longrange fire with both forts until they were well past them. The ships then turned south and reversed course, heading southeast close by Fort Walker on its northern face. This circular plan of attack, similar to that employed by Union forces in the successful action at Hatteras, had been suggested by Du Pont’s flag captain, Charles H. Davis, while the ships were under way. Meanwhile the gunboats Bienville, Seneca, Curlew, Penguin, and Augusta interposed themselves to the northwest of the circling larger Union ships to prevent Tattnall’s flotilla of seven small Confederate gunboats in the upper harbor from interfering. The action began at 9:26 a.m., when a gun at Fort Walker fired on the Wabash, and a gun at Fort Beauregard immediately followed suit. The Wabash returned fire, and the fighting then became general. Passing through the channel, the ships turned in succession according to plan, passing 800 yards from Fort Walker. They then circled and turned to mid-channel, again following it in while engaging both forts at long range before turning south. The second Union pass was at only 600 yards from Walker. Meanwhile, the inexperienced Confederate gunners found it difficult to hit the moving Union ships. Fire from Walker steadily diminished, and

Port Royal Sound, Battle ofâ•‡ | 537

by the time the Wabash was in position to commence fire for a third time, with its starboard guns against Walker, return fire had entirely ceased and the engagement was over. At 11:15 a.m. the Ottawa signaled that the Confederates had abandoned the works, and seamen in the tops of the Union vessels confirmed the flight of the defenders. Du Pont then sent Commander John Rodgers ashore under a flag of truce, and at 2:20 p.m. Rodgers raised a Union flag over the deserted Confederate works. Du Pont then ordered signals hoisted to bring up the transports and sent Commander C. R. P. Rodgers ashore with a party of marines and seamen. By nightfall a brigade was ashore, and Fort Walker was in Union hands. During the engagement, all but three of Walker’s guns on the waterside had been dismounted or otherwise put out of action. Du Pont had proven that the best defense against an enemy battery was an accurate and high volume of fire; during the engagement, the Wabash alone had fired 880 shells, including grape shot. Although the Union ships had been hit, the Confederate gunners tended to fire high, and most of the damage was thus aloft, and not of consequence. Aboard the ships 8 men had been killed. Another 23 were wounded, 6 of these seriously. Confederate losses were 11 killed and 48 wounded. Two late-arriving Union ships, the Pocahontas and the R. B. Forbes, also participated in the action, as did the tug Mercury, which employed to good effect its lone Parrott gun. Tattnall’s gunboats had been utterly unable to intervene in the battle, although they did rescue some of the fleeing defenders from Hilton Head and ferry them to the mainland. Immediately after the situation at Walker had been decided, Du Pont ordered some of his ships to reconnoiter Fort Beauregard and prevent the Confederates from ferrying men and equipment from that place. Near sunset, lookouts reported that the Confederate flag had been hauled down, and Beauregard was deserted. Early the next morning, a Union landing party hoisted the U.S. flag over that fort as well. Du Pont then turned over both forts to Sherman. Fort Walker was renamed Fort Welles, while Fort Beauregard became Fort Seward. The triumph at Port Royal was an important event, preceding as yet any major battlefield victory for the Union Army and coming immediately on the heels of the Union land defeat at Ball’s Bluff on October 21. Port Royal’s deep harbor provided an ideal base for extended South Atlantic Blockading Squadron operations and was soon a major naval station and supply depot. There was a negative aspect for the Union in this victory, however. Many in the North now came to believe that steam warships could defeat all forts. This mistaken belief became an important element of future Union naval strategy. At the same time, General Robert E. Lee, given charge of reorganizing the Confederacy’s south Atlantic defenses, within weeks ordered abandonment of a number of scattered Confederate coastal positions and the withdrawal of their defenders beyond the range of Union naval guns, save in the cases of Charleston and Savannah, where defenses were strengthened.

538 |â•‡ Portsmouth Navy Yard

The Confederates thus shifted from a perimeter to mobile defense that was based on interior lines and relied on the railroads to concentrate against any major Union amphibious operation. Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Blockade of the Confederacy; Davis, Charles Henry; Du Pont, Samuel Francis; Hatteras Inlet, Union Assault on; Marine Corps, U.S.; Pawnee, USS; Rodgers, John; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Susquehanna, USS; Tattnall, Josiah


Portsmouth Navy Yard U.S. Navy facility, the origins of which date to the early colonial era. Established in 1800 on Fernald’s Island at the mouth of the Piscataqua River, the Portsmouth Navy Yard (also known as Kittery Yard) is located in Kittery, Maine, at the extreme southern edge of the state adjacent to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The first naval warship in North America was constructed at the yard, which is the oldest continuously operating navy yard in the country. The 48-gun Royal Navy fourth-rate Falkland was built there in 1695. Of the six original shipyards in the United States, Portsmouth’s 4,000 yards of waterfront made it the largest. Although its steam engineering and ordnance departments were not quite as large as those at other East Coast yards, this vast plant was ideal for shipbuilding. With eight cranes and two masting shears, the facility produced 10 warships, including 2 74-gun ships of the line, before the Civil War. During the conflict itself, the Portsmouth yard employed 2,455 people, and 23 warships were built there. Today, more than 200 years after it was established, the site remains an active naval facility. William E. Whyte III See also Ironclads, Union; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron

References Canney, Donald L. Lincoln’s Navy: The Ships, Men and Organization, 1861–65. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998. Preble, George H. History of the U.S. Navy Yard: Portsmouth, N.H. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1892.

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Potomac Flotilla U.S. Navy unit organized at the beginning of the Civil War as part of the Coast Blockading Squadron (soon redesignated the Atlantic Blockading Squadron and later the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron) and centered on the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers. On April 22, 1861, Commander James H. Ward, stationed at the New York Navy Yard, proposed to U.S. secretary of the navy Gideon Welles the creation of a “flying flotilla” for duty in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. Welles approved the idea five days later. The Potomac Flotilla was specifically charged with the defense of Washington, D.C. Based at the Washington Navy Yard, Ward’s scratch force of small, lightly armed steamers was soon actively patrolling the river to secure the movement of Union transports and supply ships to the capital. Increasing numbers of Confederate shore batteries, especially at Alexandria, Virginia, rendered flotilla activity hazardous, and in consequence army troops were then assigned to operate with the flotilla and carry out limited land assaults. During May 29–June 1, 1861, the side-wheeler steamer Thomas Freeborn, screw steamer Anacostia, and screw tug Resolute (joined by the screw sloop Pawnee on May 31) engaged and silenced Confederate shore batteries at Aquia Creek, Virginia. Then on June 27 Ward’s flagship, the Thomas Freeborn, armed with two 32-pounders, supported a Union landing at Mathias Point. The landing party encountered a sizable Confederate force, which forced the attackers back to their vessels. In the ensuing exchange of fire, Ward was struck and mortally wounded by a Confederate musket ball as he sighted one of the ship’s guns, becoming the first Union naval officer killed in the war. The Potomac Flotilla steadily increased in numbers and firepower, reaching a size that varied between 15 and 25 vessels, including side-wheelers, screw gunboats, and ironclad monitors. By March 1862 the Confederates, who needed the guns elsewhere, had withdrawn their shore batteries from the Potomac. The flotilla participated in numerous operations during the war, including those up the Rappahannock during Major General George B. McClellan’s 1862 Peninsula Campaign. The last was up Mattox Creek in Virginia during March 16–18, 1865. Following Ward’s death, the Potomac Flotilla had a rapid succession of six different commanders until Commodore Andrew A. Harwood took command on September 10, 1862. He was followed on December 31, 1863, by Commander Foxhall A. Parker Jr., who held the post until after the end of the war. On July 18, 1865, the Navy Department ordered Parker to disband the flotilla on July 31. Most of its vessels were decommissioned at the Washington Navy Yard. Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Brooklyn Navy Yard; Harwood, Andrew Allen; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Parker, Foxhall Alexander, Jr.; Potomac River; Riverine Warfare; Ward, James Harmon; Washington Navy Yard; Welles, Gideon

540 |â•‡ Potomac River


Potomac River Strategically important river, some of which separates Maryland from the District of Columbia and Virginia. The Potomac River, one of four tidal rivers in the region, is 383 miles long and flows generally south and east until it empties into the Chesapeake Bay. The Chesapeake Bay’s four major tidal rivers, from north to south, are the Potomac, Rappahannock, York, and James rivers. All of the lower Potomac lies within the state of Maryland. A small tidal portion, however, runs through the District of Columbia. The Potomac has two sources, which separate it into the North and South branches. Together, the river drains 14,768 square miles of area. The source of the North Branch is located at the junction of modern-day Tucker, Grant, and Preston counties in West Virginia. The South Branch’s source is in northern Highland County, Virginia. The two branches converge in Hampshire County, West Virginia. The Potomac is tidal as far west as Washington, D.C., although the tidal range at that point is quite small. Beginning in the early 18th century, white settlers—chiefly English—settled in the Potomac River Valley, generally from east to west. The watershed provided fertile land good for growing numerous crops and afforded inhabitants a ready supply of potable water. The river had great symbolic and strategic significance before and during the Civil War. The Lee family still had a sizable estate along its banks in 1861, and President George Washington’s beloved Mount Vernon was also located along the Potomac. As a young surveyor, Washington himself had surveyed much of the Potomac River, from the Chesapeake west toward its two sources. The river’s proximity to Washington, D.C., and Maryland, the dividing point between North and South, also gave the river special significance. Indeed, from the earliest days of the war, Union officials remained concerned about a Confederate attack on Washington, D.C., via the Potomac. During the early part of the 19th century, a series of canals was constructed to link inland waterways through the Potomac and into the Chesapeake Bay. The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, completed in 1850, allowed shippers to go around the Great Falls, the fall line of the Potomac located about 15 miles upstream from Washington, D.C. The Potomac was home to the Washington Navy Yard, located on the eastern branch in southeastern Washington, D.C. The yard served as the home base for the Potomac Flotilla during the Civil War and became a major repair facility for Union

Powell, Levin Minnâ•‡ | 541

vessels. It also served the U.S. Navy as the epicenter of its Ordnance Department, where new guns and armor for ironclad ships were tested. In 1861 the Potomac Flotilla, whose primary goal was to defend Washington, D.C., was created as a “flying flotilla” that could also operate in the nearby Chesapeake Bay and tidal rivers, especially the Rappahannock. The flotilla was also designed to aid in the transport of supplies and troops to Washington, D.C., and northern Virginia. Several Union riverborne assaults, designed to cripple or destroy Confederate artillery batteries downriver, were launched from the area. Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr. See also James River; Potomac Flotilla; Riverine Warfare; Washington Navy Yard

References Smith, J. Lawrence. The Potomac Naturalist: The National History of the Headwaters of the Potomac River. Parson, WV: McClain Printing, 1968. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Powell, Levin Minn Birth Date: April 21, 1803 Death Date: January 15, 1885 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Winchester, Virginia, on April 21, 1803, Levin Minn Powell received a midshipman’s warrant in the navy on March 1, 1817. He was promoted to lieutenant on February 28, 1826; to commander on June 24, 1843; and to captain on September 14, 1855. At the beginning of 1861, Powell had served in the U.S. Navy for 43 years: some 18 years of sea service, 10 years of shore assignments, and 15 years awaiting orders in a navy with too many officers for the assignments available. Before the beginning of the Civil War, President James Buchanan’s secretary of the navy, Isaac Toucey, sent Powell to the Norfolk (Gosport) Navy Yard. Powell’s mission was to confer with its commandant, Captain Charles F. McCauley, regarding the security of the yard. The two officers agreed that it was fully protected as a consequence of its warships, the availability of the Home Squadron, and the marine contingent stationed there. In July 1861 Powell received command of the sailing frigate Potomac at the New York (Brooklyn) Navy Yard. In late August, Powell was ordered to join the Gulf Blockading Squadron. At first assigned to the blockade of Mississippi Sound, Powell joined the blockaders off Mobile Bay on November 11. Placed on the retired list on December 21, 1861, Powell nonetheless continued in active service in command of his ship until June 1862.

542 |â•‡ Powhatan, USS

On January 25, 1862, Powell sailed for Veracruz, Mexico, to protect American interests with the arrival of French and Spanish squadrons there and the subsequent intervention of the French in Mexico. In May, Captain Henry Eagle and the sailing frigate Santee replaced Powell off Veracruz. The Potomac became a storeship at Ship Island in Mississippi Sound, and Powell was ordered north. In late 1862 Powell became lighthouse inspector of the New York district and continued in that assignment into 1866. In early 1863 he was advanced to commodore, with rank backdated to July 16, 1862. Powell was promoted to rear admiral on the retired list on May 13, 1869. He served on special duty in Washington, D.C., during 1869–1870 and died in that city on January 15, 1885. Spencer C. Tucker See also Brooklyn Navy Yard; Eagle, Henry; Gulf Blockading Squadron; McCauley, Charles Stewart; Mississippi Sound; Mobile Bay; Norfolk Navy Yard; Ship Island, Mississippi; Toucey, Isaac


Powhatan, USS U.S. Navy side-wheeler steam frigate. The Powhatan was built at the Norfolk (Gosport) Navy Yard. Laid down on July 14, 1847; launched on February 13, 1850; and commissioned on September 2, 1852, the Powhatan was 2,415 tons. It had an overall length of 276 feet, 6 inches; beam of 45 feet; and draft of 20 feet, 9 inches. A fast steamer, even in its later years, the Powhatan was capable of 11 knots. The ship had a crew complement of 289 officers and men. Although armament varied during the course of its service life, the Powhatan was armed in November 1861 with 1 XI-inch Dahlgren smoothbore, 10 IX-inch Dahlgren smoothbores, and 5 12-pounder boat howitzers. After service in the Home Squadron in 1852, the Powhatan served in the East India Squadron during 1853–1860 and took part in Commodore Matthew C. Perry’s expedition to Japan in 1854, during which it served as his flagship. During the British attacks on the Taku forts in the Hai (Peiho) River, China, on June 25, 1859, Commodore Josiah Tattnall ordered the Powhatan and other U.S. ships to assist the British, justifying this action with the words, “Blood is thicker than water.” Following its lengthy foreign service, the Powhatan was decommissioned at the New York (Brooklyn) Navy Yard on April 1, 1861, for an engine overhaul.

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Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles then ordered the ship’s engines reassembled and the ship itself readied for sea as part of an operation to relieve Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. On April 1, 1861, however, Captain David D. Porter convinced President Abraham Lincoln to give him command of the ship for the relief of the Pensacola Navy Yard and Fort Pickens. Removing the ship from the plan to relieve Sumter ended any slim chance of success for that operation. The Powhatan was recommissioned on April 5. After operations off Fort Pickens, the Powhatan took up the blockade off Mobile Bay and then served off the mouth of the Mississippi River. During August–October the Powhatan was engaged in searching for the Confederate commerce raider Sumter in the West Indies. The Powhatan underwent repairs at the Philadelphia Navy Yard during November 1861–August 1862. From October 1862 to August 1863, it operated off Charleston, South Carolina. It served in the West India Squadron as the flagship of Rear Admiral James L. Lardner during November 1863 to September 1864. It took part in the second, successful, attack on Fort Fisher, North Carolina, during January 13–15, 1865. In the war, the Powhatan took four Confederate prizes. Following the war, the Powhatan served as the flagship in the South Pacific Squadron during 1866–1869 and in the Home Squadron during 1869–1886. Decommissioned on June 2, 1886, it was sold on July 30, 1897, and broken up. Spencer C. Tucker See also Brooklyn Navy Yard; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Fort Fisher Campaign; Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, Relief Efforts and Beginning of the Civil War; Lardner, James Lawrence; Mobile Bay; Norfolk Navy Yard; Porter, David Dixon; Sumter, CSS; Tattnall, Josiah; Welles, Gideon; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Silverstone, Paul H. The Sailing Navy, 1775–1854. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2001. Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Preble, George Henry Birth Date: February 25, 1816 Death Date: March 1, 1885 U.S. Navy officer. George Henry Preble, born in Portland, Maine, on February 25, 1816, was the nephew of Commodore Edward Preble, who gained fame during the Barbary Wars. Preble secured a midshipman’s warrant on October 10, 1835, and subsequently served in the frigate USS United States in the Mediterranean until 1838. He was promoted to passed midshipman on June 22, 1837. Preble

544 |â•‡ Preble, George Henry

circumnavigated the globe as acting lieutenant aboard the sloop St. Louis during 1843–1845, and during its visit to China commanded a party of marines and sailors that quelled a riot in Guangzhou (Canton). Preble also took part in the MexicanAmerican War (1846–1848), participating in the captures of Alvarado, Veracruz, and Tuxpan. He was promoted to lieutenant on February 5, 1848. In 1853 Preble participated in Commodore Matthew C. Perry’s expedition to Japan, where he had charge of a surveying expedition. At the beginning of the Civil War, Preble commanded the screw gunboat Katahdin in the West Gulf Blockading Squadron and took part in the passage up the Mississippi River and capture of New Orleans in April 1862. Promoted to commander on July 16, 1862, he took command of the screw sloop Onieda, charged with blockading Mobile Bay, but was unable to prevent the entrance there on September 4 of the Confederate raider Florida. Captain John N. Maffitt of the Florida, whose ship resembled a British vessel, had flown British colors; Preble, fearing a repeat of the Trent Affair, had been slow to react and then had first fired three warning shots instead of loosing a broadside. As the senior officer on station, Preble was dismissed from the navy by Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles on September 20 for the failure, but subsequent testimony as to the Confederate ship’s superior speed and considerable pressure on Preble’s behalf by friends led to his reinstatement. Ironically, Preble and Maffitt had been close friends before the war. In a second embarrassing encounter with the Florida, now commanded by Lieutenant Charles N. Morris, Preble was in command of the sailing sloop St. Louis in the Mediterranean and caught up with the Florida at Madeira. On February 28, 1863, the Florida outran the far slower Union ship to escape to the Portuguese port of Funchal. After the war, Preble, now commanding the steamer State of Georgia, rescued 600 passengers from the wrecked American steamship Golden Rule off Panama. Commanding the Boston Navy Yard during 1866–1868, he was promoted to captain on January 29, 1867. He then commanded the screw sloop Pensacola until 1870, and was promoted to commodore on November 2, 1871. From 1873 to 1875 he commanded the Philadelphia Navy Yard. He was promoted to rear admiral on September 30, 1876, and commanded the South Pacific Station, after which he retired on February 25, 1878. During his retirement, Preble became an avid writer and collector of naval documents. He donated his large collection of nautical papers and books to the Navy Department Library before his death in Boston, Massachusetts, on March 1, 1885. Wesley Moody and Spencer C. Tucker See also Blockade-Runners; Boston Navy Yard; Florida, CSS; Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s Run Past; Maffitt, John Newland; Mobile Bay; New Orleans, Louisiana,

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Union Capture of; Philadelphia Navy Yard; Trent Affair; Welles, Gideon; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Owsley, Frank L., Jr. The C.S.S. Florida: Her Building and Operations. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1965. Paine, Nathaniel. Biographical Notice of Rear-Admiral George H. Preble: Prepared for the Report of the Council of the American Antiquarian Society. Worcester, MA: Press of Charles Hamilton, 1885.

Price, Joseph Birth Date: October 26, 1835 Death Date: May 15, 1895 Confederate Navy officer. Joseph Price was born on October 26, 1835, in Kenansville, North Carolina. After his mother’s death less than a year later, his father moved the family to Wilmington, North Carolina. Price was appointed a lieutenant in the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service on March 17, 1856, and served just more than five years on the U.S. Revenue Service cutter Joseph Lane. Concurrent to his resignation on April 17, 1861, he enlisted in 2nd Company H, 40th Regiment, North Carolina Troops (3rd Regiment North Carolina Artillery) and was commissioned a first lieutenant a month later. He held this post only four months, resigning on September 16, 1861. Price entered the Confederate Navy on April 29, 1863. He was assigned to the Savannah Squadron as executive officer of the ironclad floating battery Georgia, commanded by Lieutenant Thomas Pelot. On June 3, 1864, Pelot led an attack to capture the U.S. Navy side-wheel sloop Water Witch off Ossabaw Island, Georgia. When Pelot was killed, Price took command and completed the capture of the ship. For his role in the action, he was promoted to commander on July 12, 1864, and given command of CSS Neuse a month later. After covering the Confederate evacuation of Kinston, North Carolina, on March 12, 1865, Price and his crew scuttled the ironclad. Price returned to Wilmington, North Carolina, after the war, serving first as a railroad conductor and later as harbormaster for the port of Wilmington. He died on May 15, 1895, in Wilmington, North Carolina. Andrew Duppstadt See also Floating Battery; Georgia, CSS, Ironclad Floating Battery; Neuse, CSS; Revenue Cutter Service, U.S.; Savannah River Squadron; Wilmington, North Carolina, Engagements at

References Bright, Leslie S., William H. Rowland, and James C. Bardon. CSS Neuse: A Question of Iron and Time. Raleigh: North Carolina Division of Archives and History, 1981.

546 |â•‡ Privateers Manarin, Louis H., ed. North Carolina Troops, 1861–1865: A Roster, Vol. 1, Artillery. Raleigh, NC: State Department of Archives and History, 1966. Smith, Derek. “Rebel Raid on the Water Witch.” North and South Magazine 5(2) (2002): 80–85.

Privateers Privateers were privately owned vessels sailing under special commissions issued by their governments in time of war that authorized them to capture ships of an enemy power, be they warships or merchant vessels. Privateering was not new to the United States. A great many privateers had taken to the seas during both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. On April 17, 1861, two days after U.S. president Abraham Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers, Confederate president Jefferson Davis and secretary of state Robert Toombs issued a statement accusing Lincoln of planning to invade the Confederacy. They invited applications from Confederate citizens for letters of marque and reprisal. The Confederate Congress then passed, and Davis signed into law on May 6, a bill recognizing a state of war with the United States and establishing regulations for “letters of marque, prizes, and prize goods” similar to those employed by the United States during the War of 1812. Davis and other Southern leaders believed that privateering was legally justified because, alone among major powers, the United States and Spain had failed to ratify the 1856 Declaration of Paris, the signatories of which foreswore the employment of privateers. Privateering seemed a natural recourse for a nation without a navy and thus dependent upon private assistance. In retaliation, Lincoln proclaimed a blockade of the Confederate coasts on April 19, 1861, and warned that privateers would be subject to the U.S. laws against piracy. Confederate secretary of the navy Stephen R. Mallory had little confidence in privateers, but even modest success would force up insurance rates in the North and adversely affect the business sector. Also, even a few such vessels would oblige the U.S. Navy to shift warships from the blockade to hunt for them. Mallory was strongly in favor of commerce raiding, but he wanted national cruisers, which however were not available at the start of the conflict. Lincoln’s threat did not deter applications for letters of marque, with the first coming in the day after Davis’s invitation. On May 10, the same day the regulations were published, the Confederate government granted the first commission to the 30-ton schooner Triton, of Brunswick, Georgia. One of the smallest privateers, it was armed with a single 6-pounder and had a crew of 20 men. The largest of the Confederate privateers, the 1,644-ton steamer Phenix, was fitted out in

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Wilmington, North Carolina, at the end of May. It mounted seven guns and had a crew of 243. Although by midsummer letters of marque and reprisal had been issued to ships in most of the major Confederate ports, the chief venues remained Charleston and New Orleans. In all, the Confederacy issued letters of marque for 52 privateers. The few Confederate privateers that made it to sea in May found easy hunting. The first success came on May 16, when the 509-ton Calhoun of New Orleans with five guns captured off the mouth of the Mississippi River the 290-ton Union merchant bark Ocean Eagle, from Maine. During the next two weeks, the Calhoun took five other Union ships, three of them whalers. Two other New Orleans privateers, the steamers Music and V. H. Ivy, captured four Union ships. The arrival off the Mississippi of the powerful U.S. Navy screw sloop Brooklyn at the end of May soon put an end to privateering from the Crescent City. Although such activity at New Orleans was brief-lived, privateering was just reaching its heyday along the Atlantic coast. Typical of the Atlantic coast privateers was the fast schooner Savannah, of 53 tons with a crew of 20 men and armed with a single short 18-pounder, of War of 1812 vintage, turned into a rifled gun, as well as an array of muskets, pistols, and cutlasses. On June 3 the Savannah captured the merchant brig Joseph off Philadelphia, the first prize taken by a Charleston privateer. Toward evening that same day the crew spotted another sail and ran their ship to it, but the vessel in question turned out to be the U.S. Navy brig Perry, mounting six 32-pounders. Hopelessly outclassed, the Savannah struck after a 20-minute fight. Sailed to New York, it was there condemned and sold. The crew of the Savannah became something of a cause célèbre. Branded as “pirates” by the Northern press and the U.S. government, the men were brought to trial and, under public pressure, threatened with the death penalty. President Davis then issued a statement to the effect that if they were executed, he would hang Union officers on a one-for-one basis. For whatever reason, the U.S. government soon backed down. In February 1862 Washington decided that captured crews of privateers would be treated as prisoners of war and moved from jails to military prisons. Union warships soon ran down the remaining Confederate privateers. Some were taken at sea, while others succumbed to cutting-out operations in which Union forces went into a harbor and seized the ship by storm. Still others fell prey to natural causes. Privateers were in fact not much used in the war. The decision of the British government, copied by the other maritime powers, to ban privateer prizes from British ports dealt a deathblow to Confederate privateering. The increasing effectiveness of the Union blockade rendered it more difficult to send prizes to the South, and more and more of the prizes were recaptured. Subsequently, many privateer vessels were simply converted into blockade-runners. Two of the most unusual Confederate privateers were at New Orleans: the ironclad ram Manassas

548 |â•‡ Prize Cases

and the submarine Pioneer. Despite the difficulties with privateering, Mallory’s regularly commissioned naval warships nonetheless carried on the Confederate war against Union commerce with considerable effectiveness. Spencer C. Tucker See also Blockade of the Confederacy; Blockade-Runners; Brooklyn, USS; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Davis, Jefferson Finis; Guerre de Course; Letters of Marque and Reprisal; Lincoln, Abraham; Mallory, Stephen Russell; Manassas, CSS; Navy, CSA; Prize Cases; Submarines

References Robinson, William Morrison, Jr. The Confederate Privateers. 1928; reprint, Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1980. Tucker, Spencer C. A Naval History of the Civil War. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Prize Cases A decision of the U.S. Supreme Court upholding President Abraham Lincoln’s proclamation of blockade against Confederate ports shortly after the outbreak of the Civil War. The case involved four merchant ships separately captured by Union naval vessels at different ports and brought in for adjudication in a federal prize court. All were condemned, with their cargoes, under the proclamation of blockade; the vessels and cargoes were sold at public auction, and the proceeds of the sales were held in the registry of the courts for the benefit of the Union government and the crews of the captors, as provided by law. All the owners contested the validity of the blockade proclamation and appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Because the issues were identical, the four cases were consolidated for argument in a single proceeding generally known to historians as “The Prize Cases.” Upholding the blockade, the principal purpose of which was to prevent the exchange of southern cotton for foreign weapons much needed by the Confederacy, was of enormous importance to the Union. A secondary but critical issue was the delicate matter of the court’s perception of the status of the Confederacy. Blockade is an act of war, and the Lincoln administration needed the court to recognize that war actually existed without implying the independent sovereignty of the Confederacy. A different conclusion might have justified the British and French, both of whom badly needed Southern cotton for their textile mills, in recognizing and dealing with the Confederacy as an independent nation. That would have put Lincoln under great pressure to consider proposals for a negotiated peace. Although southern-born justices led the court, it decided the “Prize Cases” in Lincoln’s favor on both issues by a 5–4 vote. Most historians attribute this narrow victory to the persuasive gifts of Richard Henry Dana Jr., U.S. attorney for the

Puritan, USSâ•‡ | 549

District of Massachusetts (and author of Two Years before the Mast), who was the principal advocate for the captors. Officially, the cases are known by the names of the four ships: Amy Warwick, Crenshaw, Hiawatha and Brilliante. Donald A. Petrie See also Blockade of the Confederacy; Blockade-Runners; Lincoln, Abraham; Peterhoff Crisis

References “Opinion of the United States Supreme Court in The Brig Amy Warwick; The Schooner Crenshaw; The Barque Hiawatha; The Schooner Brilliante.” 67 U.S. 635 (1862). Petrie, Donald A. The Prize Game: Lawful Looting on the High Seas in the Days of Fighting Sail. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1999.

Puritan, USS U.S. Navy ironclad. Designed by John Ericsson and named by him the Protector, it and another Ericsson-designed monitor, the Dictator, were contracted for as large, seagoing monitors capable of breaking a naval blockade. The navy later changed the name of the Protector to the Puritan. The impetus for their construction was the threat of war with Great Britain in the summer of 1862, following the Trent Affair. Naval Constructor John Lenthall and Naval Engineer Benjamin F. Isherwood both registered doubts about the design of the ships, believing that the armor overhang on their sides would reduce speed and that the low freeboard of a monitor would be a serious disadvantage in rough seas. The third member of the Ironclad Board, Captain Joseph B. Smith, thought the two new large ironclads were better suited for harbor defense than as sea boats and noted that three smaller ironclads could be had for the same price as one of the large monitors. Despite this opposition, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles approved the contracts. The Puritan was built by the firm of Continental at Greenpoint, New York. Laid down in 1863, it was launched on July 2, 1864. It was never commissioned. The largest of Ericsson’s monitors, the ship was designed as a longer version of the Dictator. It displaced 4,912 tons and was 3,265 tons burden. It was 340 feet in overall length and 50 feet in breadth, and had a 20-foot draft. Whereas the Dictator was designed for a single-screw propeller and a speed of 9 knots, the Puritan was designed for a twin-screw propeller and a speed of 15 knots. Armor protection was 15 inches on the turret, 12 inches on the pilothouse, and 6 inches on the ship’s sides. The Puritan was originally designed to house two XX-inch Dahlgren smoothbore guns in two turrets. Ericsson objected to this design and to the twin-screw arrangement of propulsion, and so in November 1865 the Puritan was redesigned

550 |â•‡ Purviance, Hugh Young

for a single turret. The ordnance was never mounted, however, for construction was suspended in late 1865 after the ship was turned over to the navy. The Puritan was entirely rebuilt after 1875 as a new ship. Displacing 6,060 tons; measuring 295 feet, 8 inches, in overall length; and designated as a monitor, it was commissioned in 1896. The “new” Puritan was armed with four 12-inch, six 4-inch, and six 6-pounder guns. It was stricken from the navy list on February 17, 1913, and served as a gunnery target before being sold for scrap on January 26, 1922. Spencer C. Tucker See also Dictator, USS; Ericsson, John; Ironclad Board, U.S. Navy; Ironclads, Union; Isherwood, Benjamin Franklin; Lenthall, John; Monitor Mania; Smith, Joseph; Trent Affair; Welles, Gideon

References Canney, Donald L. The Old Steam Navy. 2 vols. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1990, 1993. Silverstone, Paul H. The New Navy: 1883–1922. New York: Routledge, 2006. Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. II, Vol. 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1921.

Purviance, Hugh Young Birth Date: March 22, 1799 Death Date: October 21, 1882 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, on March 22, 1799, Hugh Young Purviance attended St. Mary’s College in Baltimore before receiving a midshipman’s warrant in the navy on November 3, 1818. Purviance received promotion to lieutenant on March 3, 1827; to commander on March 7, 1849; and to captain on January 28, 1855. At the beginning of 1861, Purviance had been in the navy for some 41 years: some 19 years in assignments afloat, 7 years in shore duty, and 15 years awaiting orders in a navy with too many officers for available assignments. After the start of the Civil War, Purviance assumed command in June 1861 of the sailing frigate St. Lawrence, then undergoing refit at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. Ordered to join the Atlantic Blockading Squadron, Purviance arrived in his ship at Hampton Roads on July 11, and on July 16 his ship captured the British blockade-runner Herald bound from Wilmington, North Carolina, for Liverpool. Ordered to Charleston, South Carolina, on July 28, the St. Lawrence sank the Confederate privateer Petrel off that port and captured its crew. Purviance was then stationed off Savannah.

Purviance, Hugh Youngâ•‡ | 551

When the Atlantic Squadron was divided in two in late 1861, Purviance was assigned to the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron and ordered to cruise off South Carolina and Georgia. In early 1862 Purviance was ordered to sail his ship to New York to take on supplies. Although placed on the retired list on December 21, 1861, Purviance continued on active service. Returning from New York, Purviance arrived with his ship at Hampton Roads on March 6. He was present during the Battle of Hampton Roads on March 8–9, 1862. The St. Lawrence grounded during the first day of the battle and received some damage from shot fired by the Confederate ironclad Virginia, before it was freed that evening and moved to the protection of the shore batteries at Fort Monroe. Purviance and his ship were reassigned to the Potomac Flotilla in late March. The next month, Purviance was assigned to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, and James F. Schneck took command of the St. Lawrence when that ship was ordered to join the East Gulf Blockading Squadron. Purviance served as lighthouse inspector in the district of Norfolk, Virginia, from June 1862 to May 1865. In early 1863 Purviance was advanced to commodore, with date of rank from July 16, 1862. He was promoted to rear admiral on the retired list on February 25, 1881. Purviance died in Baltimore on October 21, 1882. Spencer C. Tucker See also Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Blockade-Runners; Charleston, South Carolina; East Gulf Blockading Squadron; Fort Monroe, Virginia; Hampton Roads, Battle of; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Philadelphia Navy Yard; Potomac Flotilla; Privateers; Â�Schneck, James Findlay; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Virginia, CSS; Wilmington, North Carolina, Engagements at

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 7. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1898.


Q Quartermaster Transports Vessels of varying types and sizes used by the U.S. Army to transport troops and supplies in support of battlefield operations. The U.S. Army’s Quartermaster’s Department had responsibility for providing all military transportation, including that on rivers and oceans. River transportation was employed in nearly every theater, but it was especially important in the poor railroad network of the western theater. The western rivers provided natural avenues of advance into the heart of the Confederacy, and the army was able to use riverboats to move and supply troops with relative ease. Over the course of the war, the Quartermaster’s Department chartered, hired, or pressed into service 822 river vessels, including 633 steamers. It owned another 637 vessels, of which 115 were steamboats. The army quickly recognized the importance of its riverboats and in the summer of 1861 began the construction of a gunboat flotilla to protect the transports and operate against Confederate river forts. Control of the gunboat flotilla, however, passed to the U.S. Navy in July 1862. In addition to its riverboats, the Quartermaster’s Department developed a large fleet for ocean transportation. These ships landed army troops in amphibious expeditions and supplied Union coastal garrisons. They also allowed the army more flexibility in planning operations. Major General William T. Sherman’s army was able to march from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia, in 1864 because Quartermaster transports could bring supplies for 60,000 men and 35,000 animals to him once he reached the coast. By war’s end, the department had chartered or hired 753 ocean steamers, 1,080 sailing vessels, and 847 barges. It also purchased or built 183 ocean steamers, 43 sailing vessels, and 86 barges. Richard F. Kehrberg See also Amphibious Warfare; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Riverine Warfare

References Gibson, Charles Dana, and E. Kay Gibson. Assault and Logistics: Union Army Coastal and River Operations, 1861–1866. Camden, ME: Ensign Press, 1995. United States War Department, Quartermaster General. Annual Reports of the Quartermaster General from 1861 to 1866. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1880.

553

554 |â•‡ Queen of the West, USS

Queen of the West, USS One of the ships in Colonel Charles Ellet Jr.’s U.S. Mississippi River ram fleet. The Queen of the West was a side-wheel steamer built in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1854. It was converted at Cincinnati into a ram in 1862. It was 181 feet in length, 36 feet in beam, and 6 feet in draft of hold. It displaced 406 tons. It had a complement of 120 officers and seamen and was armed with one 4.62-inch (30-pounder) Parrott rifled gun and three 12-pounder Dahlgren boat howitzers. The Queen of the West engaged the Confederate Defense Fleet in the Battle of Memphis (June 6, 1862) and the Confederate ironclad Arkansas above Vicksburg, Mississippi (July 15 and 22). It conducted operations below Vicksburg later that year and was captured in the Red River when the Confederate pilot deliberately ran the ship aground as it was trying to run past a shore battery at Fort de Russy, Louisiana, on February 14, 1863. In Confederate service, the Queen of the West captured the U.S. gunboat Indianola on the Mississippi near New Carthage, Mississippi, on February 24, 1863. The Queen of the West caught fire and was destroyed in an engagement in the Atchafalaya River on April 14, 1863. Gary D. Joiner See also Arkansas, CSS; Ellet, Charles, Jr.; Memphis, First Battle of; Mississippi River; Mississippi River Defense Fleet; Queen of the West vs. Indianola; Ram Fleet, U.S.; Red River; Riverine Warfare

References Joiner, Gary D. Mr. Lincoln’s Brown Water Navy: The Mississippi Squadron. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007. Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989.

Queen of the West vs. Indianola Event Date: February 24, 1863 In February 1863 Rear Admiral David D. Porter, commander of the U.S. Mississippi Squadron, sent additional firepower south on the Mississippi River to assist Colonel Alfred Ellet in the ram Queen of the West (armed with one 4.2-inch [30-pounder] Parrott rifle and three 12-pounder Dahlgren boat howitzers). This aid took the form of the powerful ironclad Indianola (two XI-inch and two IX-inch Dahlgren smoothbores). Commanded by Lieutenant Commander George Brown and towing two coal barges, the Indianola ran the Vicksburg batteries on February 13 and anchored off the Red River to await news of Ellet, who had proceeded up

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that river with the Queen of the West and the captured Confederate river steamer De Soto in search of additional prizes. The Confederates, however, captured the Queen of the West on February 14 and destroyed the De Soto. Ellet and his crew managed to escape on the small steamer Era No. 5, just taken from the Confederates, and joined the Indianola. The Confederates subsequently repaired the Queen of the West and incorporated it into their own forces. In order to end Ellet’s depredations, Confederate authorities in Jackson had meanwhile ordered the 655-ton side-wheeler steamer transport William H. Webb converted into a ram at Alexandria, Louisiana. It mounted one 8-inch rifled gun and two 12-pounder howitzers. Major Joseph L. Brent had command. Learning of the presence of the Indianola and determined to seek it out, Confederate army lieutenant Colonel Frederick B. Brand, in the small steamer Dr. Beatty (one 6-pounder), joined on February 24 the William H. Webb and the repaired Queen of the West, both now under Brent’s command. With the Grand Era acting as a tender, the squadron steamed out of the Red River and headed up the Mississippi. The Confederates located the Indianola about 30 miles below Vicksburg, near Carthage, Mississippi. The Union ironclad was moored to the shore with two coal barges alongside. Knowing of the heavy guns on the Union ship, Brand planned a surprise night attack. But shortly before 10:00 p.m., Union lookouts spotted the Confederate warships approaching. The fight raged for about an hour, with the Indianola firing its four Dahlgrens a total of 17 times. The William H. Webb and Queen of the West managed to ram and strip away the two barges protecting the Indianola, and on its third run the William H. Webb sliced into the Union ship near its starboard wheelhouse, opening a large hole in the ram’s own bow. The Queen of the West, meanwhile, braved the Indianola’s two stern IX-inch Dahlgrens to smash into the Union ship there and break open its stern. On being informed that the Union ship was disabled, Brand positioned the Dr. Beatty alongside the Indianola and grappled it with the intention of boarding, whereupon Brown surrendered. The Indianola had suffered one dead and another wounded from Confederate sharpshooters. Ninety others were taken prisoner. All damage to the Indianola had been inflicted by ramming. The attackers had a number of guns disabled, with two men dead and three others wounded. Brand ordered the Union ship pushed to shore in order to prevent it from sinking in deep water. The Confederates placed the Indianola under tow with the hope of taking it up the Red River for repairs. But with the ironclad taking on a great deal of water, in part from Union efforts to sabotage the ship, the Confederates allowed it to settle as a water battery in 10 feet of water off Jefferson Davis’s plantation. Spencer C. Tucker See also Ellet, Alfred Washington; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Porter, David Dixon; Queen of the West, USS; Ram Fleet, U.S.; Red River; Riverine Warfare; Tender Vessel; Webb, CSS

556 |â•‡ Queen of the West vs. Indianola


R Radford, William Birth Date: September 9, 1809 Death Date: January 8, 1890 U.S. Navy officer. William Radford was born in Fincastle, Virginia, on September 9, 1809, but moved to Kentucky as a boy. He entered the U.S. Navy on a midshipman’s warrant on March 1, 1825. Radford was promoted to passed midshipman on June 4, 1831, and to lieutenant on February 9, 1837. Sea service included cruises with the West Indies, Mediterranean, and Pacific squadrons. During the MexicanAmerican War (1846–1848), Lieutenant Radford commanded the landing party from the sloop USS Warren that captured the Mexican brig Malek Adhel at Mazatlán on September 7, 1846. He also took part in other Pacific Coast operations during the war. Radford was promoted to commander on September 14, 1855. At the beginning of 1861, Radford had served in the navy for 35 years: 12 years in assignments at sea, 5 years in shore assignments, and 18 years awaiting orders in a navy that had too many officers for available assignments. When the Civil War began, Radford was commanding the steam sloop Dacotah in the Far East and led the first U.S. Navy expedition up the Chang Jiang (Yangtze River) to Hankou (Hankow). Because Radford was from Virginia, U.S. secretary of the navy Gideon Welles doubted his loyalty and relieved him of command and ordered him to return to the United States. Radford served as a lighthouse inspector until Welles was assured of his patriotism and gave him command of the sailing sloop Cumberland in the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron in early 1862. Radford was away from his ship, on board the frigate Roanoke as a member of a court of inquiry, when the Cumberland came under attack and was sunk by the Confederate ironclad Virginia in Hampton Roads on March 8, 1862. Promoted to captain on July 16, 1862, and to commodore on April 24, 1863, Radford was assigned to the New York Navy Yard. During June to August 1864, the ironclad USS New Ironsides was undergoing repairs at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, and Radford took command of that ship on its recommissioning on August 22. The New Ironsides was assigned to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, and Radford commanded it and the ironclad division during the Union attacks on Fort Fisher, North Carolina, in December 1864 and January 1865. On January 27, 1865, Radford assumed command of the James River Squadron, where he cooperated with Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant’s forces at City Point, Virginia. On April 28 Radford was assigned command of the North Atlantic 557

558 |â•‡ Raleigh, CSS

Blockading Squadron as acting rear admiral. In June the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron and the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron were combined into the Atlantic Squadron, and Radford assumed command of the new squadron at Port Royal, South Carolina, on July 26. Radford commanded the Atlantic Squadron until October 1865, when he assumed command of the Washington Navy Yard and reverted to his permanent rank of commodore. Radford held that command until January 1869. He was promoted to rear admiral on July 25, 1866. Radford commanded the European Squadron during February 1869–August 1870. He retired on March 1, 1870, but served on various boards during 1870–1872. Radford died in Washington, D.C., on January 8, 1890. Spencer C. Tucker See also Brooklyn Navy Yard; City Point, Virginia; Fort Fisher Campaign; Hampton Roads, Battle of; New Ironsides, USS; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Philadelphia Navy Yard; Roanoke, USS; Virginia, CSS; Welles, Gideon

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Roberts, William H. New Ironsides in the Civil War. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1999. Robinson, Charles M., III. Hurricane of Fire: The Union Assault on Fort Fisher. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998. Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001.

Raleigh, CSS Laid down in the spring of 1862 at J. L. Cassidey and Sons Shipyard in WilÂ� mington, North Carolina, and commissioned on April 30, 1864, CSS Raleigh was a Richmond-class ironclad. It was 172 feet, 6 inches, in overall length and 34 feet in beam, and had a 12-foot draft. The ship was armed with four 6.4-inch Brooke rifles, and was commanded by Lieutenant John Pembroke Jones. On the night of May 6, 1864, the Raleigh escorted a number of blockade-Â�runners across the bar at New Inlet, North Carolina, and then proceeded to engage separately five Union warships. At daybreak on May 7, 1864, the Raleigh disengaged and returned across the bar into the Cape Fear River. On the voyage upriver to Wilmington, North Carolina, the ironclad ran aground on a sandbar. The keel broke under the weight of the armor, and the Raleigh sank. Its guns were salvaged and sent to Wilmington, while the boilers were sent to Columbus, Georgia, where they were used on another ship, CSS Chattahoochee. Andrew Duppstadt

Ram Fleet, U.S.â•‡ | 559

See also Blockade-Runners; Brooke Guns; Columbus Navy Yard; Ironclads, Confederate

References Campbell, R. Thomas. Storm over Carolina: The Confederate Navy’s Struggle for Eastern North Carolina. Nashville: Cumberland House, 2005. Fonvielle, Chris E., Jr. The Wilmington Campaign: Last Rays of Departing Hope. Mechanicsville, PA: Stackpole Books, 1997. Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. Still, William N., Jr. Iron Afloat: The Story of the Confederate Armorclads. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1985.

Ram Fleet, U.S. Flotilla created in early 1862 to assist Union forces in securing control of the Mississippi River. The leading figure in this plan was civil engineer Charles Ellet Jr. As early as 1855 Ellet had been recommending the construction of ironclad rams. His suggestions had, nonetheless, been ignored. Following the ramming and sinking of the U.S. Navy sailing sloop Cumberland in the Battle of Hampton Roads by the Confederate ironclad Virginia (ironically constructed to Ellet’s specifications) on March 8, 1862, however, U.S. secretary of war Edwin M. Stanton embraced the notion of steam battering rams. Stanton authorized Ellet to oversee the procurement of nine speedy and well-built steamboats and their conversion into rams. The work was carried out at Cincinnati, Ohio; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and New Albany, Indiana. Following their conversions, Ellet, now commissioned a colonel in the army, assumed command of what became known as the Ram Fleet. Ellet held that a ram’s horsepower had to be in correct ratio to its deadweight tonnage. Cannon would cut speed, and so Ellet believed that the rams should not be armed. Ellet plunged into the work. By mid-March 1862 the Switzerland (413 tons), Lancaster (257 tons), and Queen of the West (406 tons) were nearing readiness, and a fourth steamer, the Monarch (496 tons), was on the stocks. The T. D. Horner (123 tons), Mingo (228 tons), Lioness (198 tons), and Dick Fulton (98 tons) had been purchased and were awaiting conversion. The Samson served as a floating machine shop. All were side- or stern-wheel steamers. Transforming them into rams included reinforcing their hulls with additional timbers and filling their bows with timber, all to enable them to withstand the shock of ramming. The rams were under army command but for the most part operated under navy orders, an arrangement that pleased neither party. In April the War Department learned that the Confederates were putting together a ram fleet of their own and would soon be heading north to aid in the defense of Fort Pillow. Stanton ordered Ellet, now an army colonel, to proceed with his four completed rams and join the Western Flotilla, then a few miles upriver from Fort

560 |â•‡ Ram Fleet, U.S.

One of the ships in the U.S. Army’s Ram Fleet, commanded by Colonel Charles Ellet Jr. Note the side wheels and the ship’s sharp bow. Orginally the rams were not armed, relying solely on the reinforced bow as a weapon.

Pillow. Stanton ordered Ellet to cooperate with Western Flotilla commander Flag Officer Charles H. Davis, but Ellet, who preferred to act independently, took this directive lightly. A few days before the arrival of the Ellet rams, rams of the Confederate Mississippi River Defense Service attacked Davis’s gunboats in the Battle of Plum Point Bend, and two Union gunboats were put out of action. Ellet wanted an immediate attack on Fort Pillow, but Davis demurred. On June 4, however, the Confederates abandoned Fort Pillow, and the next day Davis’s flotilla and Ellet’s rams moved south to attack the Confederate fleet at Memphis. On June 6, 1862, Ellet’s rams charged ahead of Davis’s flotilla and engaged the Confederate steamers at Memphis. In the ensuing battle, the Confederates lost all their rams, save one that escaped downriver. Two of Ellet’s rams suffered repairable damage. Ellet himself was the only Union casualty; wounded by a pistol ball, he died three weeks later from blood poisoning. His younger brother, Lieutenant Colonel Alfred Ellet, who had command of the Monarch, took his place. Alfred Ellet was promoted to brigadier general in November, and the unit was made part of a new amphibious command called the Mississippi Marine Brigade. The Mississippi Marine Brigade was to act as an amphibious strike force, and was assigned 10 army companies—6 of infantry and 4 of cavalry—in addition to a battery of artillery. The brigade was transported by 10 armed steamboat transports and 6 auxiliary steamers. At full strength, the brigade included more than 1,000 officers and men, and 500 civilians. Rear Admiral David D. Porter, who succeeded Davis in command of what now was named the Mississippi Squadron, initially welcomed the creation of

Ranks, Union and Confederate Naviesâ•‡ | 561

the brigade, but he soon became disillusioned with Ellet’s near total disregard of orders and tendency to act independently. There were also numerous complaints about the brigade’s undisciplined behavior when acting ashore. The brigade subsequently took part in numerous small actions in Arkansas and Louisiana. Porter finally secured transfer of its ships to his command, but the brigade was disbanded in August 1864 and its ships transferred to other duties. Of the original ships in the Ram Fleet, the Lioness, Monarch, Samson, Switzerland, T. D. Horner, and Dick Fulton survived the war. The Lancaster was sunk by Confederate batteries as it attempted to pass Vicksburg on March 25, 1863; the Mingo sank accidently at Cape Girardeau, Missouri, in November 1862; the Monarch was sunk by ice below St. Louis in December 1864; and the Queen of the West was captured by the Confederates at Fort de Russy, Louisiana, on February 14, 1863. The Confederates had employed rams in battle at Plum Point Bend on May 10, 1862. Several rams were subsequently captured from them, and two rams—the Avenger and Vindicator—were constructed for the army but turned over to the navy before their completion in 1864. Charles Dana Gibson See also Amphibious Warfare; Davis, Charles Henry; Ellet, Alfred Washington; Ellet, Charles, Jr.; Fort Pillow, Tennessee; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Memphis, First Battle of; Mississippi Marine Brigade; Mississippi River; Mississippi River Defense Fleet; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Plum Point Bend, Battle of; Porter, David Dixon; Queen of the West, USS; Riverine Warfare; Virginia, CSS

References Crandall, Warren D., and Isaac D. Newel. History of the Ram Fleet and the Mississippi Marine Brigade in the War for the Union on the Mississippi and Its Tributaries: The Story of the Ellets and Their Men. St. Louis: Buschart Bros., 1907. Gibson, Charles Dana, and E. Kay Gibson. Assault and Logistics: Union Army Coastal and River Operations, 1861–1866. Camden, ME: Ensign Press, 1995. Hearn, Chester G. Ellet’s Brigade: The Strangest Outfit of All. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006. Tucker, Spencer C. Andrew Foote: Civil War Admiral on Western Waters. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000.

Ranks, Union and Confederate Navies U.S. Navy officer ranks before the Civil War were, in ascending order: midshipman, passed midshipman, master (formerly sailing master), lieutenant, commander, and captain. Commodore was not a formal rank, but a courtesy designation extended to those captains who commanded squadrons; the title usually remained with the officer.

562 |â•‡ Ranks, Union and Confederate Navies

In July 1862 Congress approved new ranks, including for the first time two above captain. These were commodore (one star), which now became a formal rank, and rear admiral (two stars). Two new lower officer ranks were also authorized: ensign (for graduates of the U.S. Naval Academy), which replaced passed midshipman, and lieutenant commander, which fell between lieutenant (after the Civil War this became lieutenant junior grade) and commander. Thus the ranks in ascending order were: cadet, ensign, master, lieutenant, lieutenant commander, commander, commodore, captain, and rear admiral. In December 1864 yet another rank was instituted, that of vice admiral (three stars), first held by David G. Farragut. After the war, in 1867, Farragut also became the nation’s first full admiral (four stars). In all, the U.S. Navy had 82 officers of flag rank (commodore and above) during the war. The naval officer corps included not only deck officers but also engineers, the new officers associated with the steam age; paymasters; and surgeons. The engineers, paymasters, and surgeons were limited to the rank of lieutenant commander. Seamen fell into different categories. The youngest, aged 14 (later 13) to 17, were known as “boys.” They performed odd tasks aboard ship and often acted as servants to the officers. In combat, the boys, also known as “powder monkeys,” delivered powder cartridge cases from the magazine to the gun crews. “Landsmen” formed the largest number of enlisted men aboard ship. These unskilled recruits comprised perhaps half the crew of any given ship. Landsmen performed the bulk of the labor-intensive tasks aboard ship. Landsmen were expected to learn on the job under the supervision of more skilled seamen. “Ordinary seaman” was the next highest rating. These men possessed nautical skills and achieved this rating by having served at sea for at least two years. “Seamen” would have served four years and had to pass an examination. They often assisted the petty officers and officers in the training of landsmen. “Petty officers” were the highest-ranking seamen aboard ship. All had major leadership responsibilities, supervising the seamen under the direction of the officers and providing a communications link between the officers and the enlisted men. Petty officers also played a key role in training the landsmen. The highestranking petty officer on board ship was the boatswain’s (pronounced “bo’sun”) mate. Boatswain’s mates signaled by pipe to the crew the commands given to them by the officers. Gunner’s mates were second only to the boatswain’s mates. They had charge of the ship’s guns, ordnance stores, and magazines. Other petty officers included quartermasters, carpenters, coxswains, quarter gunners, and captains of various masts. The chief appointed petty officer was the master-at-arms. Very much like a chief of police, he was charged with enforcing regulations aboard ship, assisted by the marine guard and ship’s corporals. Ironclads in particular required significant numbers of engineering personnel, officers, and enlisted men. Engineering personnel made up 11–20 percent of the total on the steamers that had both sail and steam, but they formed about 40 percent

Rappahannock, CSSâ•‡ | 563

of the crewmen of the new monitors. They made up a larger percentage on monitors because of the absence of traditional sail rigs and the small number of guns on these ships. Enlisted personnel for the engineering division included firemen first-class, firemen second-class, and coal heavers. Firemen first-class supervised the operation of the boilers, steam engines, and associated equipment aboard a ship and made up about 20–25 percent of the engineering personnel. Firemen secondclass had similar duties and made up perhaps 25 percent of the engineering personnel. Coal heavers were at the bottom of the engineering division and constituted the remainder of its personnel. The Confederate Navy retained the prewar officer ranks, adding the ranks of rear admiral and commodore as formal ranks, while squadron commanders retained the courtesy title of flag officer. Its enlisted ranks were also much the same as those of the U.S. Navy. These were, in ascending order: boy, landsman, coal heaver, fireman second-class, ordinary seaman (requiring at least one year of sea service), and seaman (requiring at least two years of sea service). As with the Union Navy, petty officer was the highest seaman rating. The Confederate Navy had only two rear admirals during the war: Franklin Buchanan in 1862 and Raphael Semmes in 1865. Spencer C. Tucker See also Buchanan, Franklin; Discipline, Naval; Farragut, David Glasgow; Marine Corps, U.S.; Naval Academy, Confederate; Naval Academy, United States; Semmes, Raphael; Shipboard Life

References Canney, Donald L. Lincoln’s Navy: The Ships, Men and Organization, 1861–65. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998. Cogar, William B. Dictionary of Admirals of the U.S. Navy, Vol. 1, 1862–1900. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. Paullin, Charles Oscar. Paullin’s History of Naval Administration, 1775–1911. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1968. Ringle, Dennis J. Life in Mr. Lincoln’s Navy. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998. Still, William N., Jr., ed. The Confederate Navy: The Ships, Men and Organization, 1861–65. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997. Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001.

Rappahannock, CSS Confederate commerce raider. Built in 1857 for the British government, the steam sloop CSS Rappahannock was the former Royal Navy Victor. Pleased with Confederate Navy commander Matthew F. Maury’s speedy purchase and launch of

564 |â•‡ Rappahannock, CSS

the ship that became CSS Georgia, Confederate secretary of the navy Stephen R. Mallory ordered Maury to secure other ships in Britain for conversion into commerce raiders. Maury sent Confederate Navy lieutenant William F. Carter to visit shipyards on the Thames River to see what might be available. After only a cursory examination, Carter settled on the former Royal Navy dispatch boat Victor, which mounted six 24-pounders. Built in London in 1857 with a wooden hull and trim lines, the Victor had a displacement of 850 tons and was 201 feet between perpendiculars, with a beam of 30 feet, 3 inches, and draft of 14 feet, 6 inches. Propelled by a single screw, it was powered by two steam engines providing 350 horsepower and was capable of 11 knots. It had two funnels forward, and was bark rigged with three masts for proceeding under sail. While the ship did have a condenser to produce freshwater from saltwater, it had only a 150-ton coal supply, sufficient for only four days of steaming. Also the ship could carry provisions sufficient for only 20 days for a crew of 125 men. Maury learned only later that, a year earlier, an agent for the Chinese government, who inspected the ship closely, had rejected the purchase because he determined that the ship was “rotten.” When the British firm of Gordon Coleman and Company offered to buy the ship in November 1863, supposedly for the China trade, the British government raised no objection. London did not know at the time that the purchaser was secretly acting on behalf of the Confederate government. Freeman H. Morse, U.S. consul in London, suspected that the ship might be intended for the Confederacy and complained to the British government, which sent an inspection team to the ship at Sheerness on November 23, just as repairs were being completed. Although the inspectors found nothing amiss, Maury feared that the British government suspected that the ship might have been transferred in violation of British neutrality laws and ordered it to sea at midnight on November 24, with 15 surprised British workmen still aboard and only a skeleton crew. Somewhere in the English Channel, Lieutenant William P. A. Campbell came aboard and christened it CSS Rappahannock. Unfortunately for the Confederacy, the Rappahannock’s engines experienced problems on departure from England, and Campbell took the ship into Calais, France, where he reported to Maury that the vessel was “unseaworthy.” Maury then sent Carter to Calais to investigate the situation, and the ship was turned over to Flag Officer Samuel Barron. Operating from Paris, Barron commanded Confederate Navy units in European waters. Lieutenant Campbell, meanwhile, applied to the French government for permission to effect repairs to the Rappahannock. Under international law, a neutral nation was within its rights to extend this courtesy to a belligerent ship damaged at sea. Learning that the ship had arrived in France in the same condition in which it had left England, however, U.S. minister to France William L. Dayton lodged a protest with French foreign minister Drouyn de Lhuys, a stickler for French neutrality. U.S. authorities also pointed out that the Confederate officers had come

Read, Charles Williamâ•‡ | 565

aboard only when the ship reached France, another violation of French neutrality, and it had only a crew of 35 on arrival, half of them British workmen. Barron hoped to transfer to the Rappahannock the guns from the now immobilized CSS Georgia, then in France undergoing repairs, and he issued orders to Campbell to that effect on January 28, 1864. With the Civil War having now tipped decisively in favor of the North, however, the French government was more motivated to maintain strict neutrality. With the French government now pressing Confederate warships to depart, the cruisers CSS Florida and Georgia sailed on February 9. With a short crew, however, Campbell refused to take the Rappahannock to sea when it was still permitted by the French government. Angered at this, Barron replaced Campbell with Lieutenant Charles M. Fountleroy. Meanwhile, on learning that a tender was to arrive from England with arms for the Rappahannock, Dayton warned de Lhuys that if the raider sailed, the U.S. government would lay claims against the French government for every U.S. ship it took as a prize. De Lhuys then issued orders to port officials at Cherbourg not to let the Rappahannock depart without orders from the Ministry of Marine. Despite efforts by Barron and Confederate commissioner John Slidell, the French continued to detain the ship, which never got to sea as a commerce raider before the end of the war. Finally conceding defeat, Barron ordered the ship decommissioned in August 1864. French authorities turned over the Rappahannock to the U.S. government in April 1865. Sold in July, it was then taken to Liverpool. Spencer C. Tucker See also Barron, Samuel; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Florida, CSS; Georgia, CSS, Commerce Raider; Mallory, Stephen Russell; Maury, Matthew Fontaine; Slidell, John; Tender Vessel

References Hearn, Chester G. Gray Raiders of the Sea: How Eight Confederate Warships Destroyed the Union’s High Seas Commerce. Camden, ME: International Marine Publishing, 1992. Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. II, Vol. 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1921. U.S. Navy Department, Naval History Division. Civil War Naval Chronology, 1861– 1865. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971.

Read, Charles William Birth Date: May 12, 1840 Death Date: January 25, 1890 Confederate Navy lieutenant and high seas raider. Charles W. Read was born in Yazoo County, Mississippi, on May 12, 1840. His father died when Read was

566 |â•‡ Read, Charles William

only 10, and his mother moved the family to Jackson. Wanting to go to sea, Read secured a warrant on September 10, 1856, as an acting midshipman and an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis. Graduating last in his class of 20 on June 15, 1861, and promoted to midshipman, Read passed most of his brief service in the U.S. Navy aboard the side-wheel frigate Powhatan, stationed in the Gulf of Mexico. On learning of Mississippi’s secession from the Union, Read resigned his commission on February 4, 1861. Read then made his way to New Orleans and served as sailing master of CSS McRae, a bark-rigged steamer. He fought in engagements with Union ships on the lower Mississippi River, including the run to New Orleans by Flag Officer David G. Farragut’s squadron. Read next served as second lieutenant aboard the Confederate ironclad ram Arkansas. Following the scuttling of that ship in the Mississippi, Read joined the crew of the Confederate commerce raider Florida, commanded by Lieutenant John N. Maffitt, in November 1862. Among the U.S. merchant ships taken by the Florida was the brig Clarence on May 6, 1863. Read, then 23 years old, requested and secured permission from Maffitt to sail this prize on a daring mission to Hampton Roads, Virginia, to cut out a Union gunboat or steamer. Read set out that same day with 20 men, his ship armed with a single 12-pounder howitzer, planning to sail the 3,400 miles from Brazil to Norfolk. A month later, he took and burned his first prize. Others followed, but from the crewmen taken he learned that Union security precautions would make it impossible to enter Hampton Roads. Having taken six prizes in the Clarence, Read shifted operations on June 12 to one of them, the Tacony, which was faster than the Clarence. He then burned the Clarence. Taking other prizes in the Tacony, Read was soon forced to release his growing number of prisoners, which meant that his presence was no longer a secret. Continuing north, Read reached in late June the New England fishing grounds, where he took and burned a half dozen schooners and captured a large clipper ship. By now Read had exhausted his ammunition, and there were some 40 U.S. warships searching for him. Read, however, took 15 prizes in the Tacony before he burned that ship on June 25, 1863, after transferring to yet another prize, the small fishing schooner Archer. On June 26 Read boldly sailed the Archer into Portland, Maine, where he captured the U.S. Revenue Service cutter Caleb Cushing and managed to sail it out of the harbor. Union officials armed two steamers and set out in pursuit. Unfortunately for Read, he was unaware of the location of the cutter’s ample ammunition supply, and following a brief gunfight, he scuttled the ship and surrendered. Read and his small band had taken 21 prizes, burning 15 of them and causing widespread panic along the North Atlantic seaboard. Exchanged in 1864, Read then distinguished himself with the James River Squadron and as commander of the side-wheel steamer CSS Webb during the Red River Campaign. Following the war, Read served on a British merchantman, and

Receiving Shipâ•‡ | 567

then became master of a United Fruit Company steamer. He next became a Mississippi River pilot and then ended his career as the president of the Board of Harbor Masters at New Orleans, serving until the late 1880s. Read died in Meridian, Mississippi, on January 25, 1890. Spencer C. Tucker See also Arkansas, CSS; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Farragut, David Glasgow; Florida, CSS; Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s Run Past; James River; James River Squadron, CSA; Maffitt, John Newland; Naval Academy, United States; Powhatan, USS; Red River Campaign; Webb, CSS

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Jones, Robert A. Confederate Corsair: The Life of Lt. Charles W. “Savez” Read. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2000. Register of Officers of the Confederate States Navy, 1861–1865: As Compiled and Revised by the Office of Naval Records and Library, United States Navy Department, 1931, from All Available Data. With a new introduction by John M. Carroll. Mattituck, NY: J. M. Carroll, 1981. [Originally published by the Naval Record and Library, U.S. Navy Department, in 1898 and revised in 1931.] Shaw, David W. Sea Wolf of the Confederacy: The Daring Civil War Raids of Naval Lt. Charles W. Read. New York: Free Press, 2004.

Receiving Ship Obsolete ships used in port to house and process new recruits. Old and frequently unseaworthy, receiving ships were in fact hulks. During the Civil War, they included the former 74-gun ships of the line Ohio and North Carolina. The uncompleted Vermont and New Hampshire were launched and commissioned during the war as store and receiving ships. The Confederates utilized for this purpose the old frigate United States, taken at the Norfolk Navy Yard and commissioned as CSS Confederate States. Such ships had space sufficient to accommodate up to 1,000 men each. Following enlistment, recruits reported to one of the receiving ships, where they would remain as long as several weeks. On board they received a cursory physical exam and were issued uniforms and eating utensils. They performed routine ship maintenance and received rudimentary training in military courtesy, knot tying, the parts of the ship, the functions of ropes and rigging, and even some weapons work. The sailors were then sent to their assigned ships. Today, land-based receiving stations have replaced receiving ships. Spencer C. Tucker See also Discipline, Naval; Hulk; Norfolk Navy Yard; Shipboard Life

568 |â•‡ Red River

References King, Dean. A Sea of Words. New York: Henry Holt, 1997. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Red River Large tributary of the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers and the second-largest river basin located in the southern Great Plains region. Composed of two branches (North and South) in the Texas Panhandle in the west, the Red River flows generally east, forming the entire boundary between Oklahoma and Texas. It then forms a short boundary between Texas and Arkansas before turning sharply to the south near Fulton, Arkansas. The river continues southeast, bisecting Louisiana from the northwest and emptying into the Atchafalaya and Mississippi rivers in eastcentral Louisiana. The Red River is 1,360 miles in length; its southern branch has its source in Randall County, Texas; its northern branch begins just to the north of that. Both branches converge in western Oklahoma. The waterway, which boasts at least seven significant tributaries, gets its name from its frequently ruddy-colored waters, the result of runoff from the red-clay soils that it drains. Prior to European colonization, the Red River Valley was home to numerous Native American nations, including the Apache (and later Comanche) in the west, the Wichita and Tonkawa in the central valley, and the Caddo Confederacy in the east. The first American to survey the valley seriously was Zebulon Pike in 1805– 1806. By the early 19th century the Red River had become largely nonnavigable in much of Louisiana because of a large section littered with fallen trees and other debris. Beginning in 1839 the affected area underwent attempts to clear it of logjams, but this was not fully accomplished until after the Civil War. Later, the U.S. Congress underwrote efforts to make the eastern part of the waterway navigable, and the river is now navigable to barge traffic as far north as Shreveport, Louisiana. During March–May 1864, the eastern part of the Red River was utilized by a joint Union army-navy expedition aimed at striking the Confederates at Shreveport. That city served as Louisiana’s temporary capital, was a principal Confederate supply depot, and served as headquarters for Confederate lieutenant general E. Kirby Smith. The Red River Campaign ended in abject failure, however, and Shreveport remained in Confederate hands. In 1943 portions of the western end of the river were dammed, creating Lake Texoma, an 89,000-acre reservoir on the Texas-Oklahoma border about 60 miles north of Dallas. The lake was built chiefly for flood control and hydroelectric capacity, but it has become widely used for recreational purposes as well. Smaller reservoirs have been formed elsewhere, which serve chiefly as flood-control measures. Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr.

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See also Mississippi River; Red River Campaign; Riverine Warfare

References Johnson, Ludwell H. Red River Campaign: Politics & Cotton in the Civil War. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1993. Tyson, Carl N. The Red River in Southwestern History. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1981.

Red River Campaign Start Date: March 10, 1864 End Date: May 22, 1864 Abortive Union land and river campaign in Louisiana in the spring of 1864. Following the Union victories at Vicksburg and Port Hudson in July 1863, most naval operations in the Western and Trans-Mississippi West theaters of war were of small scale, typified by an occasional Confederate mobile shore battery dueling with Union ships on the river. The great exception to this rule was the Red River Campaign of March–May 1864. The largest combined operation to that point in U.S. military history, it was also one of the war’s major military fiascos. Following his victory at Vicksburg, Major General Ulysses S. Grant, soon to be elevated to Union general in chief as a lieutenant general, favored an operation to capture the important strategic center of Mobile, Alabama. Mobile was the last deepwater Confederate port on the Gulf of Mexico, and Confederate forces there were a threat to Union lines of communication. Taking Mobile would free up a number of Union blockaders and secure the Union right flank in the next big drive, against Atlanta. With the sizable force available, Grant might easily have moved on Mobile after taking Vicksburg. Unfortunately, President Abraham Lincoln and Union general in chief Henry W. Halleck had other priorities, and not until he took over direction of all Union armies in mid-March, with Halleck as his chief of staff, was Grant able to dictate strategy. Before Grant assumed his post, Lincoln, long an advocate for operations against Texas, had approved Halleck’s plan for an expedition up the Red River against Shreveport, Louisiana. Located in extreme northwestern Louisiana, on the west bank of the Red River, Shreveport had long been on the short list of important Union military objectives. A city of 12,000 people, it was both the capital of Confederate Louisiana and the headquarters of Lieutenant General E. Kirby Smith’s Army of the Trans-Mississippi. By 1864 it was also a thriving manufacturing center and supply depot, and it boasted a naval yard for the construction of the ironclad CSS Missouri and a secret project to build five river-defense submarines. Shreveport was also an important communications point and hub for other war-related industries in east Texas. It

570 |â•‡ Red River Campaign

Rear Admiral David Porter’s fleet above the falls at Alexandria, Louisiana, May 1864. Ships moored along the river bank include (from left to right) the ironclad Mound City, two City-class ironclads (either the Carondelet, Louisville or Pittsburg), transport William H. Brown, steamer Benefit, tug Dahlia, and (in the distance and barely visible) the ironclad Neosho. (Naval History and Heritage Command)

marked the terminus of the “Texas Trail,” the cattle road that led west into Texas, and it served as the principal conduit for goods and supplies shipped from Mexico. Union forces had tried to gain a toehold in Texas. In September 1863 efforts to take Sabine City had failed, although a second Union joint navy and army attempt at Brownsburg near the Mexican border was successful. The Red River appeared to be the ideal avenue into the interior of the Confederate Trans-Mississippi West. Despite sound military reasons for taking Shreveport, the chief Union motivations were economic and political. The shortage of cotton had sharply driven up its price for New England textile manufacturers and cost the jobs of thousands of workers. The Red River Valley was the greatest cotton-production area in the Confederacy. In normal times, cotton was shipped down the Red River to the Mississippi River and on to New Orleans, for export abroad. Now, in the spring of 1864, upward of 2 million bales were stored along the Red and its tributaries. Washington officials hoped that an operation up the Red would bring the capture of significant stocks of cotton. To win the November presidential election, Lincoln would need to carry New England, and restoring mill jobs in that region would go a long way toward that end. Supporters of the plan also hoped that Union success in Arkansas and Texas would end Southern resistance in Louisiana. Diplomatic considerations also figured in the decision. French emperor Napoleon III had dispatched a sizable expeditionary force to Mexico, and policy makers in Washington wanted to forestall any possible French designs on Texas. The navy’s role in the Red River Campaign was to support the Union operations ashore. Ships would proceed up the Red, providing transportation for some of the troops part of the way and furnishing gunfire support and logistical assistance


as required. To carry out these missions, Mississippi Squadron commander Rear Admiral David D. Porter assembled a large force of some 90 vessels of all types. In normal times the Red River was navigable to Shreveport without major difficulty. Rising near Amarillo, Texas, the 1,300-mile-long river flowed east, forming the boundary between Texas and Oklahoma. It then entered southwestern Arkansas and turned south to Shreveport, continuing on to join the Mississippi above Baton Rouge. Although twisting, the river was normally broad and deep, and naval operations on it would not have been difficult. Unfortunately for Union plans, when the operation up the Red began, exceptionally dry weather and Confederate defensive schemes had considerably reduced the river’s water levels. On paper, the plan appeared to promise success. Union forces enjoyed numerical advantage in every area, including some 42,900 troops, organized in three major bodies. Major General Nathaniel P. Banks commanded the largest contingent. Banks’s high-profile political standing had secured him a major generalcy of volunteers, but despite his own lack of military training, he rejected the sound military advice offered by his professional subordinates and had already demonstrated his incompetence in an operation against Port Hudson. Reportedly, Banks was considering a run for the presidency in 1864 on the Republican ticket. Keeping him occupied in the West would mean that he was less likely to stir up trouble for Lincoln’s own effort to secure the nomination. Banks exuded confidence, glossed over difficulties, and failed to insist on the staff work essential for success. With some 19,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry of the Department of the Gulf, he was to march southwest from New Orleans to Brashear City, and then northwest to Opelousas and the main north-south road to Alexandria. There he was to be joined by some 2,500 men of the U.S. Colored Corps and also link up with the second Union prong of 10,000 men in Major General William T. Sherman’s Army of the Tennessee, commanded by Brigadier General Andrew Jackson Smith. The combined southern force would number 32,500 men and 90 artillery pieces. This force would press on to Shreveport, supported by Porter’s ships. Because of the upcoming Atlanta campaign, Smith was under orders not to proceed beyond Shreveport, and his men were detailed to the campaign for one month only, until mid-April. As the combined land and naval force under Banks, Smith, and Porter drove on Shreveport from the south, 10,400 men under Major General Frederick Steele, commander of the Department of Arkansas, were to close on Shreveport from the north, trapping the city’s defenders from that direction. As is the case in all such polycentric military plans, success depended on all three prongs coming together at precisely the same time. Failure of any one prong would place the whole scheme in jeopardy. Adhering to schedule was essential because in mid-April the best Union troops, the hardened veterans provided by Sherman, would be lost to the operation. Yet only Porter and Smith cooperated effectively, and both despised Banks. Another threat to the plan’s success lay in


the possibility of Confederate commander E. Kirby Smith concentrating his entire command to overwhelm each of the three Union prongs piecemeal. Although Banks presented himself as the expedition’s overall commander, in fact there was none, another serious shortcoming. Halleck planned to orchestrate the component commands himself from Washington, a process rendered all the


more difficult by his tendency to issue vague orders so that he would not be blamed if things went badly. Confederate general E. Kirby Smith was well aware of Union preparations through an effective spy service. He and Major General Richard Taylor, commander of the Western District of Louisiana, constantly haggled over where to position their limited resources, but in early March 1864, with Union forces clearly preparing to move, Smith called on his scattered legions to concentrate. The Red River Campaign commenced on March 10, 1864, when, already three days behind schedule, Brigadier General Andrew Jackson Smith’s 10,000 men and their equipment boarded 21 army Quartermaster Corps steamer transports at Vicksburg. The next evening the transports rendezvoused with Porter’s warships, already positioned off the mouth of the Red River. From spies, Porter received exaggerated reports of Confederate forces in the river and of ironclads and submarines under construction at Shreveport. Porter counted on overwhelming force, in what was the most powerful assembly of naval strength on inland waters of the entire war. Porter flew his flag in the tinclad Black Hawk and had available the ironclads Benton, Carondelet, Chillicothe, Choctaw, Eastport, Essex, Lafayette, Louisville, Mound City, Neosho, Osage, Ozark, and Pittsburg. He also had the lighter-draft gunboats Covington, Cricket, Forest Rose, Fort Hindman, Gazelle, Juliet, Lexington, Ouachita, St. Clair, Signal, and Tallahatchee, along with the ram Sterling Price. Accompanying the warships was a host of smaller vessels, including tugs, tenders, dispatch boats, and supply ships. The Mississippi Marine Brigade had its own ships, and there was also a hospital vessel. Porter was, however, greatly concerned about the depth of the river and the effects this might have on the larger ships and overall operations. On March 12 the Union warships and transports entered the Red River and began their progress upriver, led by the Eastport, commanded by Lieutenant Commander Seth L. Phelps. The mouth of the Red was in fact a complex of different streams, with the Ouachita/Black River joining it nearby, and the Atchafalaya River, a former course of the Mississippi, exiting that river near the mouth of the Red. Porter sent some of his ships up the Ouachita to neutralize the Confederate fortification at Trinity, and on March 13 Smith’s men disembarked at Simmesport on the Atchafalaya River to march north overland on the Marksville Road west of the Red River against Confederate Fort DeRussy upstream. After the Union troops and their equipment were ashore, the transports rejoined Porter’s warships. Over the preceding months, Confederate brigadier general William R. Boggs, E. Kirby Smith’s chief of staff, had supervised construction of an extensive defensive system of works and obstacles to protect Shreveport. These included Fort DeRussy, situated at the only real defensible position in the river south of Alexandria. It was located on the western bank of a U-turn in the river, midway between the river’s mouth and Alexandria.


Boggs strengthened DeRussy with 40-foot-thick, 12-foot-high earthen walls, surrounded by a deep, wide ditch. Later the works were reinforced by railroad iron. In March 1864 the fort mounted eight heavy guns and two field pieces, but it was designed to defend the water approaches. Some eight miles below DeRussy, at another hairpin turn in the Red at a place known as the Bend of the Rappiones, the Confederates erected an obstruction in the form of two rows of heavy pilings in the riverbed across the river. Confederate engineers then built a raft of wood and iron across its top and cut down trees upriver, allowing the felled trees to collect against the raft. Porter and Smith worked out a plan whereby Smith’s troops would assault Fort DeRussy from the land side, while Porter’s men removed the river obstructions and attacked the fort with ironclads from the waterside. Major General John Walker’s division of Texas troops—3,300 men and 12 artillery pieces—defended the lower Red River area. As the Union troops moved through Simmesport, Walker sent word to Taylor, who then hastily evacuated his troops, a decision that doomed Fort DeRussy but saved the bulk of the Texans for the more important battles to come. General Smith’s troops arrived at Fort DeRussy on the afternoon of March 14, whereupon its defenders opened up on them with field artillery. Meanwhile, Porter had sent Phelps ahead with the Eastport, Osage, Fort Hindman, and Cricket. The ships reached the water obstruction in midmorning, and their crews immediately began dismantling it. The powerful Eastport rammed the pilings to loosen them, and then pulled them free with hawsers. By late afternoon a path had been opened, and at dusk the Union ships arrived at Fort DeRussy, just as the Union troops were beginning their land assault. The four Union ships immediately opened fire on the fort. Under attack from land and water, DeRussy surrendered at 6:00 p.m. Of its 300 defenders, 185 were taken prisoner and the remainder escaped. Union forces also captured all the Confederate guns and ammunition. Union casualties in the land operation were 38 dead and wounded. The Union troops then rejoined the transports to proceed upriver. Porter, who had abandoned his own effort up the Atchafalaya River, employed the Benton and Eastport in an effort to destroy Fort DeRussy, but even fire from point-blank range failed to destroy its well-constructed casemates. On the morning of March 16, Phelps had nine gunboats at Alexandria, from which he landed 180 men under Osage captain Lieutenant Commander Thomas O. Selfridge to take possession of the city, which was subsequently secured by the Union troops. Porter had hoped to be able to capture Confederate shipping there, but news of the surrender of DeRussy caused General Taylor to order the immediate evacuation of all vessels and Confederate ground units. Six steamers got away upriver just ahead of the Union ships, and all escaped, save for the Countess, which went aground in the falls and was burned to prevent capture. Arriving at Alexandria himself with the rest of his ships, Porter settled down to await the arrival of Banks.


The U.S. Navy ironclad Osage. It and its sister-ship Neosho were designed by James B. Eads. These “turtleback” river ironclads were the only monitors to be propelled by stern wheels. Drawing by F. Muller, circa 1900. (Naval History and Heritage Command)

Porter had no idea how Banks and Steele were faring. In fact, both commands were behind schedule. Banks was to have been at Alexandria on March 17, but his entire force did not arrive there until March 26, and Steele did not set out until the very day that Porter and Smith took Alexandria. These delays allowed the Confederates to build up their strength. With the addition of Walker’s Texans, Taylor now commanded some 7,000 men. Taylor planned to conduct delaying actions that would mask his actual strength and to engage Banks in pitched battle only at a time and place of his own choosing. Taylor soon found himself without his “eyes,” however, when Union brigadier general Albert Lee’s cavalry advance of Banks’s force arrived at Alexandria on March 21. That night, the Union troopers caught the Southern cavalrymen in bivouac without proper defensive preparations and captured 350 of them, along with 400 mounts. Banks and the main body of his XIX Corps were, however, well behind schedule. The head of the column did not arrive in Alexandria until March 25. The rest of the men came in the next day, already eight days behind schedule. Banks was upset to find on his arrival at Alexandria that navy personnel were busily engaged in seizing and transshipping cotton. Under naval prize law, Porter was legally entitled to seize belligerent property, which would then be turned over to a prize court for adjudication. The personnel involved stood to receive half the proceeds, with the remainder going to a fund for disabled seamen. Private property was, of course, exempt from seizure, but because it was virtually impossible to prove which was government and which was private cotton, naval officers soon had stencils and branding irons made with “CSA” on them to ensure that the seized cotton would be identified as legitimate booty. On March 24 Porter reported having seized 2,129 bales of cotton, 28 barrels of molasses, and 18 bales of wool, “all


belonging to the Confederate government.” General Taylor now ordered his men to burn all cotton that might be liable to Union seizure. The Union Army had no similar system to allow its personnel to profit from confiscated property, so there was immediate animosity between the two services over this. More important to Banks, he had brought with him a number of cotton speculators and now saw his own role as savior of the New England cotton mills fast disappearing. On April 2 Banks drafted an order that allowed Louisiana citizens to sell their cotton rather than see it lost, but this came too late for most of the stocks at hand. Banks now had 32,500 men in and around Alexandria, including the 2,500 U.S. Colored troops of the Corps d’Afrique, who had arrived by transports. The navy and army together had some 90 ships at Alexandria. Porter’s ships mounted 210 heavy guns, and Banks had 90 artillery pieces ashore. With such resources, few doubted that taking Shreveport would be an easy matter. On March 26 a letter arrived for Banks from Grant dated 11 days before. Grant, unaware that Banks was now 11 days behind schedule, informed him of his appointment as Union Army general in chief and then outlined his minimal expectations for the campaign. Grant laid down a strict timetable that he expected to be followed. He told Banks that Shreveport had to be taken as soon as possible, but regardless of circumstance, Smith’s troops would have to be returned to Sherman by mid-April. If Banks could take Shreveport, he was to garrison it, maintain navigation on the Red River, and remove the bulk of his forces to New Orleans to prepare for operations against Mobile. Despite Grant’s orders, Banks neglected his duties in order to supervise new elections for local officials at Alexandria on April 1. Porter, meanwhile, was very concerned about the dropping water in the Red and decided that he could wait no longer if he was to proceed upriver. Experienced river pilot Wellington W. Withenbury advised him to take only his light-draft vessels and leave the heavy ironclads behind. He also warned Porter about the “falls” at Alexandria—sandstone boulders in the river that usually were well below the surface but would be treacherous in low water. Porter listened to this sound advice, and then ordered Withenbury to take the large Eastport over the falls. Withenbury protested, but Porter insisted. Porter had to assume that there would be as many as five Confederate ironclads in the river, which is no doubt why he thought he needed the Eastport with him. Its large ram and powerful armament made it Porter’s most effective vessel against other ironclads. But Porter also assured anyone who would listen that he could take his ships “wherever the sand was damp,” and he informed Banks that he would accompany his men even if “I should lose all my boats,” which indeed came close to realization. Later Porter expressed his motivation to Sherman differently, noting that Banks “deemed the cooperation of the gunboats so essential that I had to run some risks and make unusual exertions to get them over the falls.”


The falling water in the Red resulted largely from deliberate Confederate actions to impede Union naval movements. E. Kirby Smith had ordered a large steamer, the New Falls City, sunk athwart the river channel near Tone’s Bayou. Its bow and stern rested as much as 15 feet up on each bank and rapidly formed a sandbar upriver of it. Confederate engineers then broke the ship open and poured mud into its hold, creating an instant large dam on the river itself. The engineers next blew up another dam, diverting the Red into old Tone’s Bayou channel and thence into Bayou Pierre. Although much of the water flowed back into the Red River a few miles above Grand Ecore, a large amount of it remained to form a 19-mile-wide collection lake in the bayou, dropping the water level in the Red considerably. On March 29 Porter set out with a dozen ships, the Eastport and Osage leading. Withenbury’s concerns over the water depth proved correct, for when he guided the Eastport into the falls it immediately grounded, and it took three days to get the ship through. Meanwhile, Porter managed to pass some of his lighter warships upriver, aided by the Eastport’s deflection of water to its sides. Although the hospital ship Woodford was wrecked in the falls, Porter did get past Alexandria the Eastport, Cricket, Mound City, Chillicothe, Carondelet, Pittsburg, Ozark, Neosho, Osage, Lexington, Fort Hindman, and Louisville. Thirty transport steamers accompanied them. Because the only communication with the ships above Alexandria was by road, supplies had to be landed, moved by wagon around the falls, and then reloaded aboard ship. In order to protect this vital supply line and the city itself, Banks left behind at Alexandria an entire division of 4,000 men. From Alexandria on, everything seemed to go wrong. It took the Union vessels four days to cover the 100 miles to Grand Ecore because the lighter vessels had to wait for the heavier ones and because of the occasional exchange with Confederate land forces. One Southern sharpshooter claimed the commanding officer of the Chillicothe. Porter’s vessels were also short of coal, and each night when they tied up along the shore, crewmen were sent out to scavenge wooden fence posts in the immediate vicinity for fuel. As they moved up the Red, the Union sailors could see smoke from thousands of bales of cotton being deliberately torched by the Confederates, rendering some planters penniless overnight. Lee’s Union cavalry had departed Alexandria on March 26, and Smith’s men followed the next evening. At the steamboat landing at Cotile, 22 miles north of Alexandria, Smith’s troops boarded the transports to accompany the fleet to Shreveport. Major General William B. Franklin departed Alexandria with the bulk of Banks’s men on March 29. Lee’s cavalry took Natchitoches on March 30, and Franklin’s men arrived there on April 1, having covered the 80 miles from Alexandria in four days of hard marching. They bivouacked between Natchitoches and Grand Ecore 4 miles north on the Red River. That same day, Banks wrote Halleck from Alexandria that he


expected little or no Confederate resistance and that he would be in Shreveport by April 10 and would then pursue Confederate forces into Texas. Lincoln saw the message and commented prophetically, “I am sorry to see this tone of confidence; the next news we shall hear from there will be of a defeat.” Not until April 2 did Banks depart Alexandria for Grand Ecore in the army steamer Black Hawk (a different ship from the U.S. Navy tinclad of the same name). Arriving there the following day, he was faced with deciding the next stage in the progression to Shreveport. Smith’s 10,000 troops were scheduled to leave in only 12 days. At Grand Ecore each part of the operation went its own way. The Arkansas portion remained completely separate from that in Louisiana, but the Louisiana portion now divided as well. With many different maps available, Banks consulted Withenbury regarding the best route to Shreveport. The river pilot had a considerable financial investment in cotton grown near the river upstream. Knowing it would be safe only if the army did not proceed upriver with the navy, he presented to Banks the option of two interior roads, one to the east (actually a better route, but which would take three additional days to traverse), and one far inland to the west. Withenbury was much more specific in information on the western route. Aware at last of the pressing time constraints on a third of his force, Banks decided to move north along the westerly road some 20 miles inland, well away from the support afforded by Porter’s ships. Banks and Porter agreed to meet at a point opposite Springfield Landing, about 30 miles south of Shreveport (110 miles by the river) on April 10. Between Grand Ecore and Shreveport, the river was narrow and winding. Afraid that the Eastport might ground in these conditions, Porter left it behind at Grand Ecore and proceeded with the monitors Osage and Neosho, the ironclad Chillicothe, the timberclad Lexington, and the tinclads Cricket (flagship) and Fort Hindman. Accompanying the gunboats were 20 army transports and 2,300 men of Smith’s XVII Corps. Porter’s ships set out on April 7. As they proceeded north up the twisting river, Porter quickly concluded that marching along the Red would have been the best route by far for Banks’s troops. The roads there were in good repair and flanked by wide fields. The troops would also have been able to move without the large supply train transporting 10 days of rations specified by Banks, and the gunboats could have supported the Union right flank. Banks’s men, meanwhile, resumed their march north beginning on April 6, with Lee’s cavalry leading. Banks arranged the order of march with the cavalry in front, followed by 300 supply wagons protected by the 2,500-man Corps d’Afrique, the main body of 15,000 men under General Franklin (with Banks at its head), its 700 wagons, and finally the bulk of General Smith’s force, with some 7,500 men of XVI Corps bringing up the rear, protected by a screen of one brigade of cavalry, which, however, did not provide flank security. The artillery was split among


the components. This march order in effect hemmed in the main force of Franklin’s infantry between wagons to front and rear, making it impossible for Banks to deploy that force rapidly in either direction. On April 7, some 3 miles north of Pleasant Hill, Lee’s cavalry encountered Confederate cavalry under Brigadier General Thomas Green, and there fought a sharp battle. The Confederates withdrew but nonetheless purchased time for their infantry to come up. The next day, the Union column reached Sabine Crossroads, just south of the town of Mansfield and about 40 miles south-southwest of Shreveport. The resulting battle is known either as Mansfield or Sabine Crossroads. The battle site marked the closest point Banks got to Shreveport, and the battle was the decisive clash of the Red River Campaign, as well as one of the last major Confederate victories of the war. On April 8, with the Union column snaking back over some 20 miles of road, Taylor and about 8,800 Confederates struck its head. Because of Banks’s poor march arrangements, only about 12,000 men—about half of the Union force— actually participated. Following hard-fought, hand-to-hand combat, the Confederates drove the Union troops back. When the attackers mounted a double envelopment, Union resistance collapsed, and the panicked Union troops fled to the rear. Only a stand by Brigadier General William Emory’s division 3 miles back prevented complete disaster. Banks’s force suffered 2,235 casualties (113 killed, 581 wounded, and 1,541 missing). The Confederates also captured 20 guns, 250 wagons, and nearly 1,000 draft animals, as well as thousands of small arms. Taylor’s own losses of 1,500 men were actually heavier in terms of numbers of men engaged, but he had ended the Union drive on Shreveport. Banks now withdrew his men to Pleasant Hill, 14 miles south, where the last major battle of the campaign occurred. Marching all night, the Union troops set up strong positions at Pleasant Hill the next morning. Although still badly outnumbered, Taylor pursued and, with reinforcements, attacked again in late afternoon, but Union counterattacks nullified initial Southern success. Nightfall ended the fighting. Union losses in the Battle of Pleasant Hill amounted to 152 killed, 859 wounded, and 495 captured. Taylor estimated his own total casualties in the two days of fighting at 2,200 men, including 700 in this engagement. Despite having won a tactical victory in the battle of Pleasant Hill, Banks believed his army was threatened with destruction and, following a conference with his subordinate commanders, decided to withdraw completely. All Union troops retired at night to Grand Ecore, and moved from there to Alexandria. Taylor had saved Shreveport and driven Union forces from eastern Louisiana. Porter had arrived at Springfield Landing on April 10 to await Banks for the final push to Shreveport. Porter had also dispatched ships up the Ouachita River. These reached as far as Monroe, Louisiana, where they confiscated 3,000 bales of cotton, brought off about 800 slaves, and destroyed some property.


Porter was already contemplating how best to dispose of the major obstruction in the river caused by the sunken New Falls City when he learned of the battle of Pleasant Hill, actually south of his own force. Distributing the warships among the troop transports with the Osage bringing up the rear, Porter ordered his ships to descend the river. Banks’s precipitous withdrawal freed up thousands of Confederates, and a number of them took up position on the bluffs along the river. In some places these positions were actually higher than the pilothouses of the ships, enabling Confederate snipers to fire down on the decks of the Union warships. Although the ships could use their heavy guns to drive the Confederates away, the task of descending the river was now much more difficult. The falling river also contributed to problems. On April 12 at Blair’s Landing, the Osage, which was lashed to the steamer Black Hawk, grounded. As the Union seamen were working to free the ship, lookouts detected troops several miles away in a wood. With the troops identified as Confederates, Lieutenant Commander Thomas O. Selfridge of the Osage ordered the Lexington to move downriver and open enfilading fire. The Confederate infantry advanced to the river and opened up with small arms. The Osage responded with grape and canister, and finally with shrapnel and fuses cut to only one second. The Union ships were riddled with bullets. Selfridge later counted 50 bullet holes in the Osage’s pilothouse alone. The engagement lasted about an hour and a half, until the Confederates withdrew. Reportedly they sustained some 300 casualties; the Union side had only 7 wounded. Among the Confederate dead was cavalry Brigadier General Thomas Green, who had led the impetuous advance. Porter now requested, and received, troops from Banks to keep Confederate soldiers away from the river, where the crews on his gunboats frequently had to free Union transports grounding on sandbars. The large transports were a constant problem and limited the progress of Porter’s ships to about 20 miles a day. Nonetheless, the Union flotilla was never in any immediate danger from the Confederates. The falling water level was a far more serious threat. On April 15 Porter’s ships reached Grand Ecore. That same day, however, the Eastport struck a mine about eight miles below Grand Ecore. Porter ordered two steam pump boats up from Alexandria, and they succeeded in raising the badly damaged ship. Lieutenant Commander Phelps took charge of operations, including the offloading of the Eastport’s guns and ammunition. But the leak at the bow could only be contained by construction of a bulkhead. Banks remained at Grand Ecore while efforts were in progress to refloat the Eastport, but Franklin and others warned Porter that Banks intended to depart soon. Informed on the afternoon of April 21 that Porter was ready to move, Banks ordered an immediate withdrawal, leaving the fleet to its own devices. That same day Porter set out from Grand Ecore with the Eastport and his other ships, the transports proceeding on ahead under escort to Alexandria. The


Champion No. 3 pump boat remained alongside the Eastport, and the Champion No. 5 took it under tow. The Eastport was long (260 feet) and down at the bow and thus difficult to control. It had progressed about 20 miles when it got out of the channel and grounded. With the squadron now lacking army support, pickets went ashore to watch for Confederates. Working day and night, the two pump boats and Fort Hindman finally managed to pull the Eastport free on April 23. The Eastport made it only five more miles before again grounding. Freed only after great effort, the ship continued to ground in the river. On April 25 it grounded several more times, and finally could not be moved. Porter had thus far been lucky, for the Confederates had been following and attacking Banks and taking little notice of the gunboats, but this could not last. Indeed, bloodied in an attack on Banks’s rear guard at Monett’s Ferry on the Cane River, the Confederates turned their attention to the Union ships. Porter was determined not to abandon the Eastport as long as Phelps thought there was hope of reaching Alexandria, but with five days of near-unceasing effort and repeated groundings, the Union crews were exhausted, and the Eastport still had 60 miles to cover before reaching friendly lines. This, coupled with the fact that the river continued to drop and the belief that the Confederates would soon make an attempt to capture the defenseless Eastport and the three ships accompanying it, led Porter to bow to the inevitable. The Union seamen made one last attempt to lighten the Eastport by removing its iron plating, but they lacked the proper tools for such work, which in any case would clearly take too much time. On April 26 Porter ordered the ship destroyed. Seven separate explosions completely destroyed the Union ironclad. Following the destruction of the Eastport and already under fire from Confederates ashore, the Cricket, Fort Hindman, Juliet, and two pump boats got under way. They had gone about 20 miles without incident when they reached a bend in the river about 5 miles above the juncture of the Cane River with the Red, where they came under attack from a force ashore estimated at about 1,200 men, supported by 18 12-pounder and 24-pounder artillery pieces. The Cricket was leading and was separated from the other vessels, when the Confederates attempted to rush it from along the bank. The flagship repulsed the attack, whereupon the Southerners opened up with their artillery, every shot of which told and immediately cleared the gunboat’s decks. One shot hit the Cricket’s after gun, disabling it and killing or wounding its entire crew. At the same time, a shell exploded near the forward gun, sweeping away its crew and wounding men in the fire room. Nonetheless, Porter managed to pass his ship through the Confederate gauntlet to a point where it could open enfilading fire. Meanwhile, the Champion No. 3 took a 12-pounder shell in its starboard boiler, releasing clouds of steam and killing three men and wounding a fourth. Of 150 to 200 escaped slaves on board, only 15 survived. Abandoned, the Champion No. 3 was subsequently captured by the Confederates and repaired. Both the Juliet and Champion 5 were


also hit. The Juliet, with its steering crippled and steam pipes cut, was disabled, but the Champion No. 5 towed that ship to safety. It was too risky to attempt to pass the Confederate shore position at night for fear of grounding, so it was not until the next morning, April 27, that the Champion No. 5 and the Fort Hindman towing the Juliet made the attempt. All soon came under heavy Confederate artillery and rifle fire. The Champion No. 5 took a shot in its pilothouse and soon sank. Other Union gunboats then arrived to assist. The Osage and Lexington both joined the fray, but the Neosho arrived too late to participate. The thin-skinned Union gunboats took such a beating that it was a wonder they survived. In the battle, the Cricket was hit 38 times with solid shot and shell. It suffered 25 killed and wounded, half its crew. The Juliet lost 2 killed, 13 wounded, and 1 missing; the Fort Hindman was struck 19 times by artillery rounds and suffered 2 men killed. The engagement over, Porter’s remaining ships limped down to the rapids above Alexandria. By April 27 Porter had 12 ships above the rapids. Banks’s men had arrived there during April 25–26 and could now provide protection, but Porter’s worries were by no means over. Indeed, the situation facing the squadron appeared desperate; the Red was falling at a rate of 2 inches a day, when it was almost always full until the middle of June. On April 28 Porter reported a water depth of only 3 feet, 4 inches, at the falls, with 7 feet required to pass his ships over. Porter was thus in the position of perhaps having to destroy all the ships or see them fall into the hands of the Confederates. He complained bitterly to Welles about what he believed to be Banks’s precipitous retreat and the little attention he had paid to the situation facing the squadron. Despite Porter’s concern, Banks did provide the requisite security, and most important, Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Bailey, acting engineer of XIX Corps, arrived on the scene. The situation appeared ominous. The rocks in the river were visible for more than a mile, the total fall of the river being 13 feet. Bailey, however, proposed constructing a dam across the river at the rapids to raise the water level and allow the ships to pass over. At the point just above the lower chute, where the dam would be built, the river was nearly 760 feet wide, and the fall would be 6 feet below the dam. To get the ships over the upper fall, the river would have to be raised 7 feet above the dam. Bailey’s plan seemed impossible, and most people, including a number of other engineers, ridiculed it. Certain it would work, Bailey convinced Porter, who then requested and received from Banks some 3,500 troops and 200–300 wagons. The troops tore down all nearby mills for materials, and several regiments from Maine were also soon hard at work felling nearby trees. Wagon teams transported to the river the felled lumber as well as stone and bricks. Bailey oversaw the construction, which consisted of a series of wing dams made of large trees and cribs of rocks, bricks, and heavy pieces of machinery taken from nearby sugarhouses and cotton gins. These cribs extended outward on either side and then into the river. Bailey


connected the space between the wings with four large navy coal barges filled with bricks, sunk in the main channel. All this was accomplished notwithstanding a strong river current of nine knots. The work began on April 30, and by May 8 the project was essentially complete, with the water having risen 5 feet, 4.4 inches. One more day would have been sufficient for Porter to be able to move all his vessels over the falls, and he brought the Fort Hindman, Osage, and Neosho over the upper falls and positioned them to pass through the dam. Then disaster struck. The pressure of the water was such that, on the morning of May 9, it swept away two of the barges. Seeing what had happened, Porter ordered the Lexington to proceed immediately. It passed safely through to cheers from those watching from the riverbanks. All the shallow-draft vessels, their hatches battened down, were able to pass over the falls. The Lexington was followed by the Neosho (which sustained some damage because the pilot lost his nerve and disobeyed Porter’s instructions to proceed at full steam), the Osage, and then the Fort Hamilton. Six of the ironclads and two tugs were still stranded, but Bailey immediately went to work supervising construction of three wing dams upstream at the upper falls to force the water into one channel some 55 feet across. The earlier work had taken eight days; this new project took three. The water rose in the channel, making a depth of 6 feet, 6.5 inches, and allowing Porter to send through the upper falls the Mound City, Carondelet, and Pittsburg. Men on shore assisted by pulling on hawsers secured to the ships. The next day, the Ozark, Louisville, Chillicothe, and the two tugs also came through the upper falls. The first three ships went through the dam on May 12, and the remaining five reached safety the next morning. As it worked out, it was fortunate that the two barges had given way, as they swung around on some rocks and formed a cushion for the ships passing through, preventing the latter from dashing into the rocks and being destroyed. Porter took pains to praise the army troops involved but most especially Bailey, who he said had saved the U.S. government “a valuable fleet, worth nearly $2,000,000.” As soon as the Union ships had passed through, Banks’s men also departed Alexandria on foot. They arrived at Simmesport on May 16 without significant Confederate harassment. Bailey then supervised construction of an improvised bridge of steamboats across the Atchafalaya River, and by May 19 the entire command was over that stream. Andrew Jackson Smith’s troops immediately left for Vicksburg. Because Grant deemed it too late to employ Banks’s forces against Mobile, the XIX Corps and part of the XIII Corps were ordered east to join the Army of the Potomac. Porter’s squadron reentered the Mississippi River on April 21. This last major Union riverine operation of the war was over. It had nearly brought the destruction of the entire Union flotilla, and it had indeed cost five vessels. In addition to the powerful Eastport, the warships lost were the Champion No. 3 and Champion No. 5, the Covington, and the Signal. The last two had been escorting a quartermaster


transport from Alexandria and were lost in an engagement with Confederate artillery ashore at Dunn’s Bayou. In the campaign the navy sustained about 120 casualties, including killed, wounded, and captured; this did not count the nearly 200 noncombatant African Americans lost on the two pump boats. The Arkansas prong of the ground effort, the so-called Camden Expedition, also met defeat. When General Steele learned that Confederate generals E. Kirby Smith and Sterling Price had joined forces and were driving against him, he ordered a retreat toward Little Rock, and the Confederates retook Camden. At Jenkins’ Ferry, Arkansas, on April 29, the Confederates made contact as Steele’s men waited to cross the Sabine River. Steele had 4,000 men in prepared defensive positions to protect the crossing site. Fighting continued for most of the day, but Steele was able to get the majority of his men across the river on a pontoon bridge. Union casualties totaled 700 men, whereas the Confederates lost between 800 and 1,000 of 6,000 committed. In the entire campaign, Union army losses were 2,750, whereas the Confederates suffered 2,300, but the Union material losses in guns, wagons, and pack animals were far heavier. The battle of Jenkins’ Ferry also opened the way for the Confederates to invade Missouri. Recriminations over the Red River Campaign began almost immediately. Ultimately, Congress investigated and issued a formal report. Most of the blame fell on Banks, whereas those whom he accused of incompetence were exonerated. Banks never again held a field command, and the Battle of Mansfield ended any possibility of him securing the 1864 presidential nomination. Lincoln replaced Banks with the capable Major General Edward R. S. Canby, and Banks subsequently left the army altogether. Union riverine warfare, begun with such great effect more than two years before at Fort Henry, thus ended on a sour note. Aside from the destruction of considerable Confederate property, much of this self-inflicted, the Red River Campaign had been an embarrassing fiasco. Sherman, then preparing to move against Atlanta, when asked what he thought of the campaign, best summed it up with the words, “One damn blunder from beginning to end.” Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Benton, USS; Black Hawk, USS; Carondelet, USS; Dunn’s Bayou, Engagement at; Eastport, USS; Essex, USS; Farragut, David Glasgow; Fort Henry, Battle of; Ironclads, Union; Lexington, USS; Lincoln, Abraham; Louisville, USS; Mississippi Marine Brigade; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Missouri, CSS; Mobile Bay, Battle of; Mound City, USS; Neosho and Osage, USS; Phelps, Seth Ledyard; Pittsburg, USS; Porter, David Dixon; Port Hudson, Louisiana, Siege of; Red River; Riverine Warfare; Sabine Pass, First Battle of; Sabine Pass, Second Battle of; Selfridge, Thomas Oliver, Jr.; Timberclads; Tinclads; Torpedoes; Vicksburg Campaign; Welles, Gideon

References Johnson, Robert Underwood, and Clarence Clough Buel, eds. Battles and Leaders of the Civil War: Being for the Most Part Contributions by Union and Confederate Officers. 4 vols. 1883; reprint, Secaucus, NJ: Castle, n.d.

Revenue Cutter Service, U.S.â•‡ | 585

Joiner, Gary D. One Damn Blunder from Beginning to End: The Red River Campaign of 1864. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2003. Sherman, William T. Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman. New York: Library of America, 1990. Slagle, Jay. Ironclad Captain: Seth Ledyard Phelps and the U.S. Navy, 1841–1864. Kent OH: Kent State University Press, 1996. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Congress. Report of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, 1863–1866: The Red River Expedition. 1865; reprint, Millwood, NY: Krauss Reprint, 1977. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 26. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1914.

Revenue Cutter Service, U.S. The U.S. Revenue Cutter Service (RCS, also called the Revenue Marine; after 1915 it became part of the U.S. Coast Guard) was an agency of the Department of the Treasury charged with enforcing the nation’s tariff and trade laws, preventing smuggling, and aiding the U.S. Navy in time of war. At the beginning of the Civil War, the RCS operated 24 cutters. Not all of these ships were available, however, with 3 cutters on the Pacific coast and 6 in the Great Lakes. Worse, Confederate forces captured 5 cutters in Southern ports, and Union forces burned another during their evacuation of the Norfolk Navy Yard. The RCS immediately began adding ships to its small fleet. It temporarily borrowed several from the U.S. Coast Survey and ordered five cutters out of the Great Lakes. It also purchased or leased a number of private vessels. Most of the prewar fleet comprised sailing cutters, but the RCS quickly discovered that they were too small and too slow for its new wartime missions. Therefore, it emphasized acquiring steamships. Unable to procure the type of ship it wanted, the RCS began a modest construction program in 1863 to build six steamers. By 1865 two-thirds of the RCS cutters were steam-powered. Even as the RCS scrambled to add new ships, it also began aiding the navy. RCS cutters helped enforce the blockade of the Southern coast, cruised for Confederate commerce raiders and privateers, escorted convoys, and took part in naval expeditions. In August 1861, for example, the U.S. Revenue Cutter (USRC) Harriet Lane participated in the operation to capture Hatteras Inlet, North Carolina. The following year, USRC Naugatuck led a Union expedition up the James River against Richmond, Virginia. The Confederate defenses at Drewry’s Bluff successfully blocked the force’s advance, but the Naugatuck gave a good account of itself in the encounter. In addition to supporting the navy, the RCS also continued its peacetime missions. Beginning in 1861, Congress began raising tariffs to pay for the war.

586 |â•‡ Richmond, CSS

Customs receipts formed an important part of U.S. revenue, which rose from $39.5 million in 1861 to $102 million in 1864. The higher cost of imported goods, combined with wartime inflation, made smuggling an increasing problem. As a result, the RCS kept a dozen or more cutters on revenue duty over the course of the war. Cutters also continued to assist ships in distress. Between 1861 and 1865, the RCS helped an average of 115 vessels per year. By these measures, the RCS aided the Union’s economic efforts, as well as the navy’s military efforts. Richard F. Kehrberg See also Blockade of the Confederacy; Coast Survey, U.S.; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Drewry’s Bluff, First Battle of; Harriet Lane, USS; Hatteras Inlet, Union Assault on; James River; Norfolk Navy Yard; Privateers; Richmond, Virginia

References Evans, Stephen H. The United States Coast Guard, 1790–1915. Annapolis, MD: United States Naval Institute, 1949. Kaplan, Hyman R. The Coast Guard and the Civil War. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1961. Kern, Florence. The United States Revenue Cutters in the Civil War. Bethesda, MD: Alised Enterprises, 1988.

Richmond, CSS Lead ship in a class of six ironclads designed for the Confederate government by Naval Constructor John L. Porter. All of the Richmond-class ships were laid down in 1862, but their completion was delayed by a shortage of such materials as iron plating, by a lack of skilled labor, and by labor strikes. On March 17, 1862, Colonel Blanton Duncan of the Confederate Treasury Department published an appeal in the Richmond Dispatch newspaper for private funds to build another ironclad along the lines of CSS Virginia. Duncan himself contributed $2,000. The women of Richmond formed a “Ladies Defense Association” and held a series of events to aid in the fund-raising; they helped secure iron for armor from the breaking up of tobacco-factory machinery, while a number of churches contributed bells to the same end. The Richmond was laid down at the Norfolk (Gosport) Navy Yard in February 1862. Acting Naval Constructor William A. Graves supervised the Richmond’s construction under direction of Confederate Navy commander Ebenezer Farrand. Launched on May 6, it was that same night towed to Richmond by CSS Patrick Henry to escape Union forces. It was commissioned at Richmond in July 1862. Union prisoners being exchanged in Richmond saw the ship and exaggerated its size, causing it to be known in the North as the Merrimack No. 2. In the South, the Richmond was also sometimes called the Virginia II (before the actual Virginia

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II was laid down) and the Young Virginia. Tonnage is unknown, but the ironclad was 172.5 feet in overall length, and 34 feet in beam, with a draft of 12 feet. A casemated ironclad, the ship was protected by 4-inch iron plating supported by 22 inches of wood. This armor belt extended 3.4 feet below the waterline. Propelled by a single screw, it could make only six knots. Crew complement was 180 men. The Richmond was armed with one 7-inch and two 6.4-inch rifled guns and one 10-inch smoothbore. It was also fitted with a spar torpedo. The Richmond saw action in a number of engagements in the James River. It first steamed from Richmond to Drewry’s Bluff on July 30, 1862, before again returning to Richmond. It made only occasional appearances downriver thereafter in 1862 and 1863, being too valuable to risk itself against a growing number of Union ironclads. With the addition by mid-1864 of two additional Confederate ironclads—the Virginia II and the Fredericksburg—in the James, however, Commander John K. Mitchell, flag officer of the Confederate James River Squadron, hoped to engage Union ships in the James with a combination of ironclads and shore batteries. The Richmond took part in engagements at Dutch Gap on August 13, Fort Harrison on September 29–October 1, and Chaffin’s Bluff on October 22. On December 7 it exchanged fire with Union Fort Brady. In the Battle of the James River (Battle of Trent’s Reach, January 23–24, 1865), now under John McIntosh Kell, the Richmond grounded on the first day of fighting while trying to pass river obstructions, and came under heavy fire from Union land batteries. On January 24 it sustained damage from the XV-inch guns of the Union monitor Onondaga before it could be refloated and withdrawn upriver. On the orders of squadron commander Rear Admiral Raphael Semmes, the Richmond and other ships of the James River Squadron were destroyed on April 3, 1865, to prevent their capture by Union forces, just prior to the fall of Richmond. The other Richmond-class ships were the Chicora and Palmetto State (both built at Charleston, South Carolina, and commissioned in November 1862), which attacked the wooden Union blockaders off Charleston on January 31, 1863; the North Carolina and Raleigh (both constructed at Wilmington, North Carolina, for the defense of that place, and commissioned in December 1863 and on April 30, 1864, respectively); and the Savannah (built at Savannah for the defense of that place and commissioned on June 30, 1863). Spencer C. Tucker See also Charleston, South Carolina, CSA Navy Attack on U.S. Navy Blockaders; Farrand, Ebenezer; Ironclads, Confederate; James River; James River Squadron, CSA; Kell, John McIntosh; Mitchell, John Kirkwood; Norfolk Navy Yard; Porter, John Luke; Raleigh, CSS; Richmond, Virginia; Semmes, Raphael; Spar Torpedo; Trent’s Reach, Battle of; Virginia, CSS; Wilmington, North Carolina, Engagements at

References Coski, John M. Capital Navy: The Men, Ships and Operations of the James River Squadron. Campbell, CA: Savas, 1996.

588 |â•‡ Richmond, USS Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. Still, William N., Jr. Iron Afloat: The Story of the Confederate Armorclads. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1985. U.S. Navy Department, Naval History Division. Civil War Naval Chronology, 1861– 1865. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971.

Richmond, USS U.S. Navy screw sloop. Built at the Norfolk (Gosport) Navy Yard, the Richmond was laid down in 1858; launched on January 26, 1860; and commissioned in October 1860. Displacing 2,700 tons (1,929 tons burden), the Richmond had a length of 225 feet between perpendiculars; breadth of 42 feet, 6 inches; and draft of 27 feet, 5 inches. Its two-cylinder engine on a single screw could produce a maximum speed of 11 knots. Crew complement was 260 men. Initial armament consisted of 14 IX-inch Dahlgren smoothbore guns, but this was increased substantially in February 1862 to 1 6.4-inch (80-pounder) Parrott rifled gun, 20 IX-inch Dahlgren smoothbores, and 1 4.2-inch (40-pounder) Parrott rifled gun. The Richmond had a long service life and took part in numerous Civil War engagements, most of these with the West Gulf Blockading Squadron. Following initial service with the Mediterranean Squadron in 1860–1861, the Richmond searched unsuccessfully for the Confederate commerce raider Sumter in the Caribbean before being assigned to the Gulf Blockading Squadron in September 1861. On October 12, 1861, the Richmond was part of the Union Squadron at Head of Passes in the Mississippi River, when it was attacked and rammed by the Confederate ironclad Manassas. The collision, while it damaged the Richmond, also damaged the Manassas and forced its withdrawal. The Richmond again sustained damage, from return fire, in its bombardment of Confederate batteries at PensaÂ� cola, Florida, on November 22–23, 1861. The Richmond took part in Flag Officer David G. Farragut’s operation up the Mississippi to capture New Orleans and sustained many hits in the passage of Confederate forts Jackson and St. Philip and in engagements with Confederate ships on the river, suffering two men killed on April 24, 1862. On June 15 it engaged the Confederate ram Arkansas in the latter’s passage through the Union squadrons above Vicksburg, and it again suffered two killed when it was hit during Farragut’s squadron’s passage of the Confederate batteries at Vicksburg on June 28. The Richmond took part in the occupation of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on December 17, 1862. It was hit and damaged by Confederate fire in the attempt to pass Port Hudson, Louisiana, on March 14, 1863, when it lost three killed. The Richmond took part in the Battle of Mobile Bay on August 5, 1864, and then participated in the bombardment of Fort Morgan during August 9–23. Early on April

Richmond,Virginiaâ•‡ | 589

25, 1865, in one of the last naval actions of the war, the Richmond engaged CSS Webb, commanded by Lieutenant Charles W. Read, about 25 miles below New Orleans. The Richmond forced the Webb, which had escaped the Red River and was trying to reach the sea, ashore, where it was scuttled. After the war the Richmond saw extensive overseas service. It served in the European Squadron during 1869–1871; in the West Indies in 1872–1873; in the South Pacific Squadron in 1874–1877; as the flagship in the Asiatic Squadron during 1879–1884; in the North Atlantic in 1887–1889; and in the South Atlantic during 1889–1890. A training ship during 1890–1893, the Richmond was relegated to receiving ship, first at the Philadelphia Navy Yard during 1894–1903, and then at Norfolk Navy Yard during 1903–1919. The Richmond was sold on July 23, 1919, and broken up. Spencer C. Tucker See also Arkansas, CSS, Union Attempts to Destroy; Baton Rouge, Battle of; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Farragut, David Glasgow; Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s Run Past; Fort Morgan, Alabama; Fort Pickens, Florida; Gulf Blockading Squadron; Head of Passes, Battle of; Manassas, CSS; Mobile Bay, Battle of; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; Norfolk Navy Yard; Philadelphia Navy Yard; Port Hudson, Louisiana, Action at; Read, Charles William; Receiving Ship; Red River; Sumter, CSS; Vicksburg, Mississippi, West Gulf Squadron Passage of; Webb, CSS; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Friend, Jack. West Wind, Flood Tide: The Battle of Mobile Bay. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2004. Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department, Naval History Division. Civil War Naval Chronology, 1861– 1865. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971.

Richmond, Virginia Capital of the Confederate States of America (1861–1865), capital of the state of Virginia, and major manufacturing center. With an 1861 population of just 38,000 people—including whites, slaves, and freedmen—Richmond ranked 25th in population among all U.S. cities, but 3rd among cities south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Richmond was at the epicenter of a major canal system, the first such project built in the United States. When railroads eclipsed canals in the early 1850s, Richmond also became a major rail hub, which was important to the Confederate war effort. Because of its strategic location at the fall line of the James River, and its considerable manufacturing and commercial concerns, Richmond served as a key

590 |â•‡ Richmond,Virginia

inland port and was a vital resource for the new Confederate States of America. The Confederate Naval Academy was located only seven miles downriver from Richmond, near Drewry’s Bluff. The Union overland effort to capture Richmond was the chief preoccupation of the major Union field army, the Army of the Potomac, throughout the course of the Civil War. A number of battles occurred along the James River, from Richmond all the way to Hampton Roads, as control of that waterway ultimately meant control of Richmond. Realizing this, the Confederate Navy established the James River Squadron in April 1861 to protect the city from a riverborne Union assault. Richmond was the South’s leading manufacturing center, producing iron, processing tobacco, and milling flour and meal. At the start of the Civil War, it also possessed the Tredegar Iron Works, the only facility capable of manufacturing rails for railroads and the heaviest cannon. It boasted numerous important newspapers, publishing houses, and one of the South’s largest hospitals, which treated thousands of wounded soldiers during the war. Richmond was also the home to two of the largest Confederate prisoner-of-war camps: Libby Prison and Belle Isle. The Civil War radically transformed the once sleepy city, as thousands of government bureaucrats, soldiers, and civilians looking to make a fast dollar poured into Richmond beginning in mid-1861. This influx severely taxed the city’s infrastructure and public services. Not surprisingly, crime and vice skyrocketed, as saloons proliferated and prostitution and gambling became rampant. And while many Richmonders turned a tidy profit during the war years, their gains were never sufficient to offset the high inflation that gripped the Confederacy. As the war dragged on, food and material shortages affected everyone, leading to a bread riot among the city’s women in 1863. By late 1864 material shortages had become critical, and a sizable number of Richmond’s residents were subsisting on nearstarvation rations. By January 1865 Union forces were closing in on the capital of the Confederacy. The Army of Northern Virginia was entrenched in Petersburg, 20 miles south of Richmond, in a valiant attempt to keep open the rail lines and protect Richmond. On April 2, 1865, Union troops breached the earthworks surrounding Petersburg, gaining a direct route into Richmond. In less than a day, the Union troops had worked their way up to Richmond, and Confederate officials and troops began fleeing the city. Ordered to destroy bridges, armories, and other facilities as they left, Confederate troops unwittingly caused a huge conflagration that incinerated a large portion of the city, including many of its important commercial establishments. Rear Admiral Raphael Semmes, commander of the James River Squadron, also had no choice but to scuttle his ships. Early on the morning of April 3, 1865, Semmes ordered his three ironclads fired and his five wooden gunboats moved upstream to Richmond. There, the men of the squadron found much of the city already in flames, including the schoolship Patrick Henry. After their crews came ashore, the gunboats were then themselves set on fire and set adrift in the James.

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The gunboat Beaufort failed to sink, and Union forces took possession of it and the unfinished ironclad Texas. Early on April 3, Union troops began entering the city and attempted to douse the fires, but by then much of Richmond lay in ruins. Richmond rebuilt quickly after the war, and by the turn of the 20th century boasted as many as 85,000 people. A series of annexations beginning in the early part of the century added sizable amounts of land and people to Richmond, but as was the case with many smaller cities, the city underwent a decline beginning in the 1960s as suburban sprawl began to drain money and people away from the inner city. Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr. See also Drewry’s Bluff, First Battle of; James River; James River Squadron, CSA; Naval Academy, Confederate; Richmond, CSS; Semmes, Raphael; Tredegar Iron Works

References Coski, John M. Capital Navy: The Men, Ships and Operations of the James River Squadron. Campbell, CA: Savas, 1996. Dabney, Virginius. Richmond: The Story of a City. New York: Doubleday, 1976. Ferguson, Ernest B. Ashes of Glory: Richmond at War. New York: Knopf, 1996.

Ringgold, Cadwalader Birth Date: August 20, 1802 Death Date: April 29, 1867 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Washington County, Maryland, on August 20, 1802, Cadwalader Ringgold received a midshipman’s warrant on March 4, 1819. He was promoted to lieutenant on May 17, 1828, and to commander on July 16, 1849. Ringgold was on the reserved list for reason of disability in September 1855. Restored to the active list in 1857, he was promoted to captain that same year, with rank backdated to April 2, 1856. At the beginning of 1861, Ringgold had been in the navy for 41 years: 18 years in assignments afloat, 9 years in shore duty, and 14 years awaiting orders in a navy that had too many officers for available assignments. At the start of the Civil War, Captain Ringgold was serving on special duty in Washington, D.C. In September 1861 he assumed command of the sailing frigate Sabine, which was undergoing repairs at the Portsmouth Navy Yard. Assigned to the Atlantic Blockading Squadron, he took up station off Georgetown, South Carolina. On November 2, 1861, his shop rescued the marines aboard the sinking steamer Governor, which had succumbed to a severe storm and was part of Flag Officer Samuel F. Du Pont’s expeditionary force headed for Port Royal, South Carolina. Ringgold then took his ship to New York for repairs. Sent out to search for the drifting storeship Vermont off Bermuda, Ringgold and his ship located and rescued

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the Vermont’s crew on March 29. Promoted to commodore on July 16, 1862, he was ordered to search for Confederate commerce raiders, especially the Alabama, and took his ship to Africa. Unsuccessful in this effort, he returned to New York. In June 1863 he was ordered out to search for the Confederate raider Tacony off New England but failed to locate it. Ringgold was on awaiting orders status when he was assigned to special duty in New York City in April 1864. Placed on the retired list on August 20, 1864, Ringgold nonetheless continued in his New York City assignment until his death. He was promoted to rear admiral on the retired list in early 1867, with rank backdated to July 25, 1866. Ringgold died in New York City on April 29, 1867. Spencer C. Tucker See also Alabama, CSS; Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Du Pont, Samuel Francis; Marine Corps, U.S.; Port Royal Sound, Battle of; Portsmouth Navy Yard; Tacony, CSS


Riverine Warfare Riverine warfare involves operations conducted on rivers and associated waterways. Prior to the Civil War, the U.S. Navy concentrated on fighting a European foe on the high seas. There was no thought of the need to operate on the country’s myriad inland rivers and smaller streams. With the beginning of the Civil War, however, Union naval strategy rapidly evolved from this prewar stance into a twofold action of blockading Southern commercial ports and prosecuting the war in conjunction with the army on inland waters. At the start of the war, none of the navy’s warships in home waters could operate easily in nontidal rivers. Innovation was required. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles at first concentrated on building the blockading fleet and all but ignored the pressing issue of a huge internal boundary that stretched along the Ohio River to the Mississippi River, and potentially beyond to St. Louis, Missouri. The army initially had responsibility for handling the inland riverine, or brown water, issues. The solution to prosecuting the naval war, even before vessels could be obtained, was contained in a course of action by Union general in chief Lieutenant General Winfield Scott. What came to be known as the “Anaconda Plan” called for a naval

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blockade to starve the South from outside assistance. At the same time, the internal waterways that bisected the South would be secured and then used as an invasion path for large, trained Union ground forces. The problem was that not enough ships existed for the first part, and there were none for the second. Subjugation of inland or “brown water” streams was a difficult task. Because the navy had little presence on inland waters, except the Great Lakes, it was expected that the new warships would be under army control. New types of ships were also required. They had to be capable of mounting large guns but have shallow drafts and be sufficiently narrow to navigate twisting streams. The first warships were paid for and built by the army, with naval officers sent west to supervise their construction. The navy would not fully control its own vessels in western operations until October 1862. Gideon Welles assigned Commander John Rodgers to assist the army in this effort, although like the other officers of the navy he had no experience in riverine warfare. His brief command in 1861 saw the purchase and conversion of 3 so-called “timberclads” designed to protect against small-arms fire only. These were the Tyler, Lexington, and Conestoga. At the same time, James B. Eads built 7 innovative ironclads of the City class (Cairo class) at St. Louis, Missouri, and Mound City, Illinois. These 10 warships formed the initial nucleus of the brown-water navy. They were grouped into the Western Gunboat Flotilla. Rodgers did not get on well with the imperious commander of the army’s Western Department, Major General John C. Frémont, and on the latter’s insistence Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote replaced Rodgers. Foote’s warships were soon patrolling the larger rivers of the upper South, bombarding shore installations and operating in conjunction with army forces. The first action involving the squadron occurred in the Battle of Belmont, Missouri, on November 7, 1861, when the Tyler and Lexington supported a landing by Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant. Although the battle had little overall consequence, it clearly demonstrated the important role that the ships could play in supporting operations ashore. Indeed, the ship guns held the reinforcing Confederates at bay long enough for Grant’s men to be brought off. The gunboats also provided the only reliable means of reconnaissance deep into Confederate territory. One of the forays by the timberclad Conestoga, under Lieutenant Seth L. Phelps, up the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers discovered two large Confederate forts guarding the approaches. These forts, Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River, became major targets for Union forces. Grant and Foote got on well together, and army-navy cooperation was excellent. The first Union target was Fort Henry. Finally securing the approval of Frémont’s successor, commander of the newly formed Department of the Missouri, Major General Henry W. Halleck, Grant and Foote moved in early February 1862, traveling up the Tennessee to within striking distance of Fort Henry. There the troops debarked. With the arrival of the ground troops delayed by the poor state of the roads, caused by recent heavy rains, Foote proceeded alone, attacking Fort

594 |â•‡ Riverine Warfare

Henry on February 6 with four ironclads and two timberclads. The fort was poorly sited almost at water level and proved no match for the large naval guns. Fort Henry surrendered to the navy. Grant’s forces then moved overland to Donelson, while Foote traveled there by water. Fort Donelson was situated on much higher ground. Foote brought four ironclads and two timberclads against the fort. The upper battery was 120 feet above the river, and shots from its guns would strike the ironclads’ sloping sides at right angles. As Grant worked to contain the Confederates from the land side, Foote sought to replicate his success at Fort Henry. On February 14 Foote attacked in the same formation, only to find that his ironclads were vulnerable to the Confederate plunging fire. Three of the four ironclads were disabled and drifted downstream, the flotilla sustaining 11 men killed and 43 wounded, including Foote. Despite this setback, the combination of Union naval forces and increasing land forces proved irresistible, and Donelson surrendered on February 16. The Union capture of forts Henry and Donelson represented the first significant Union victory in the western theater and was widely celebrated in the North. The success was also a strong impetus for additional naval construction. The timberclads Tyler and Lexington provided invaluable assistance to Grant in the Battle of Shiloh on April 6–7, 1862. At Pittsburg Landing, they provided vital close-in gunfire support to Grant’s hard-pressed forces. Meanwhile, Foote was back in action with most of his ships on the upper Mississippi. The Confederates had fortified Columbus, Kentucky, and Island Number 10. The loss of forts Henry and Donelson compromised Columbus, and the Confederates concentrated on Island Number 10, near New Madrid, Missouri. Foote moved against the island fort in March 1862, bringing 9 gunboats and 10 mortar boats. This time Foote worked with Major General John Pope, the Union army commander on the scene. After ineffective long-range shelling of Island Number 10 and on Pope’s urging, Foote ran two gunboats past Island Number 10 at night. These ships were able to control the river and allow Pope’s men to pass over to the other side, cutting off Island Number 10 and forcing its surrender on April 7, 1862. The next target was Fort Pillow. Captain Charles H. Davis replaced the ailing Foote. Meanwhile, the bulk of Pope’s forces were withdrawn for service in the East. The day after Davis took command, the Confederates struck in the first engagement of the war between naval squadrons. Eight gunboats of the Confederate River Defense Fleet attempted to cut out a Union mortar boat and its protecting ironclad. In the Battle of Plum Point Bend on May 10, 1862, two Union ironclads, the Cincinnati and Mound City, were rammed and rendered hors de combat, while several Confederate gunboats were badly damaged. When the Confederates were forced to abandon Fort Pillow, Davis moved downriver against Memphis. Aided by the arrival of the ships of Colonel Charles Ellet Jr.’s army Ram Fleet, the Union victory was complete. In the June 6 naval Battle

Riverine Warfareâ•‡ | 595

of Memphis, all of the eight Confederate warships were sunk or captured, save one that escaped to Vicksburg. In October 1862 Rear Admiral David D. Porter took command of the flotilla, now renamed the Mississippi Squadron. Under Porter the squadron considerably expanded in size, with new ships added in the form of lightly armored “tinclads” and river monitor ironclads. Porter worked well with both Brigadier General William T. Sherman and Grant. Excellent army-navy cooperation was essential in the operations that led to the surrender of Vicksburg in July 1863. At the same time, Flag Officer David G. Farragut, commander of the navy’s West Gulf Blockading Squadron, enjoyed success on the lower Mississippi. In April 1862 he forced his way past Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, guarding the southern river approach to New Orleans, and captured the Crescent City in another heavy blow to the South. The western theater also saw the creation of the Mississippi Marine Brigade, organized in 1863 to combat Confederate guerrilla operations along the Mississippi River and its tributaries. In one of the U.S. military’s first experiments in combined arms operations, the brigade utilized the ships of the U.S. Army’s Ram Fleet, supplemented by transports to carry infantry, cavalry, and even artillery. Ineffective and insubordinate leadership and a poor record of service ashore led to the unit’s disbandment in August 1864. Less glamorous Union riverine operations were also occurring in the eastern theater, where Union ships assisted Major General George B. McClellan’s ill-fated Peninsula Campaign in Virginia in 1862. Union Navy control of much of the James River below Richmond was also of great importance to Grant in the Appomattox Campaign at the end of the war. Union riverine operations indeed played a key role in the North’s victory in the war. Gary D. Joiner and Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Anaconda Strategy; Baron de Kalb, USS; Belmont, Battle of; Cairo, USS; Cairo-Class River Ironclads; Cairo Naval Station; Carondelet, USS; Cincinnati, USS; Conestoga, USS; Cumberland River; Davis, Charles Henry; Eads, James Buchanan; Ellet, Alfred Washington; Ellet, Charles, Jr.; Farragut, David Glasgow; Flotilla; Foote, Andrew Hull; Fort Donelson, Battle of; Fort Henry, Battle of; Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s Run Past; Fort Pillow, Tennessee; Ironclads, Union; Island Number 10, Battle of; James River; James River Squadron, CSA; Lexington, USS; Louisville, USS; Memphis, First Battle of; Mississippi Marine Brigade; Mississippi River; Mississippi River Defense Fleet; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Mortar Boats; Mound City, USS; Mound City Naval Station; Navy, U.S.; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; Ohio River; Phelps, Seth Ledyard; Phelps’s Raid; Pittsburg, USS; Pittsburg Landing; Plum Point Bend, Battle of; Porter, David Dixon; Ram Fleet, U.S.; Red River; Red River Campaign; Rodgers, John; Tennessee River; Timberclads; Tinclads; Tyler, USS; Vicksburg Campaign; Welles, Gideon; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Anderson, Bern. By Sea and by River: The Naval History of the Civil War. New York: Knopf, 1962.

596 |â•‡ Roanoke, USS Johnson, Robert Erwin. Rear Admiral John Rodgers, 1812–1882. Annapolis, MD: U.S. Naval Institute, 1967. Joiner, Gary D. Mr. Lincoln’s Brown Water Navy: The Mississippi Squadron. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007. Reed, Rowena. Combined Operations in the Civil War. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1978. Shea, William L., and Terrence J. Winschel. Vicksburg Is the Key: The Struggle for the Mississippi River. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003. Simson, Jay W. Naval Strategies of the Civil War: Confederate Innovations and Federal Opportunism. Nashville: Cumberland House, 2001. Symonds, Craig L. Lincoln and His Admirals. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Tucker, Spencer C. Andrew Foote: Civil War Admiral on Western Waters. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. West, Richard S., Jr. The Second Admiral: A Life of David Dixon Porter. New York: Coward-McCann, 1937.

Roanoke, USS U.S. Navy coastal ironclad. Ten days after the engagement between USS Monitor and CSS Virginia in Hampton Roads on March 9, 1862, U.S. Navy engineer Benjamin F. Isherwood and naval constructor John Lenthall wrote to Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles to propose conversion of the screw steam frigate Roanoke into a “seagoing” ironclad. Among the advantages touted for this was that a conversion would be both cheaper and faster than new construction. Welles approved the project. The first Roanoke was laid down in May 1854; launched on December 13, 1855 (it sank on launching but was refloated); and commissioned on May 4, 1857. Displacing 4,772 tons (it was 3,400 tons burden), the Roanoke was 262 feet, 10 inches, in length between perpendiculars, with a breadth of 52 feet, 6 inches, and draft of 23 feet, 9 inches. Propelled by a single screw, it had a speed of 8.8 knots and a crew complement of 674 officers and men. The Roanoke had a powerful armament of 2 10-inch guns, 28 IX-inch Dahlgren guns, and 14 8-inch guns, as well as 2 12-pounder Dahlgren boat howitzers. The Roanoke served in the Home Squadron during 1858–1861 and then in the Atlantic Blockading Squadron. Assigned off Charleston, it returned to Hampton Roads, where it was present during the battle between CSS Virginia and USS Monitor. Detached from the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron in March 1862, it was ordered to the New York (Brooklyn) Navy Yard, where it was decommissioned on March 25. Work was then begun to convert the ship into an ironclad. Shaping the iron plate was accomplished by the Novelty Iron Works of New York.

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The original plan called for the Roanoke to be cut down to the top of its gundeck planking. The ship’s sides would then be plated with 6 inches of iron, and no fewer than four Cowles towers, each with two 12- or 15-inch guns, would be mounted. The ship was also to receive a bow ram. An auxiliary steam engine would operate the turrets. The addition of such tremendous weight to the ship resulted in excessive draft and rendered the conversion impossible. While the new ship did receive an iron bow ram, described as being shaped like a huge ax with a 9-inch-thick blade, side armor was somewhat reduced, and the four turrets gave way to only three. The revised contract called for these turrets to be of the same design as the ones on John Ericsson’s Monitor. The ship had two stationary pilothouses, located atop the forward and aft turrets. Still, little of the original hull was modified, and draft remained excessive. The Roanoke was recommissioned on June 29, 1863. The ship weighed 6,300 tons, and was 278 feet in overall length; 53 feet, 3 inches, in breadth; and 24 feet, 3 inches, in draft. Armor protection was 11 inches for the turrets, 9 inches for the pilothouse, 4.5 inches on the sides (3.5 inches beneath the waterline), 3 inches at the ends, and 2.25 inches on the deck. Capable of a maximum speed of 8.5 knots, it had a sustained speed of 7 knots. Crew complement was 347 men. The ship was armed with one XV-inch smoothbore Dahlgren and one 8-inch Parrott rifled (150-pounder) gun in the forward turret, two Dahlgren smoothbores (one XV-inch and one XI-inch) in the middle turret, and one 8-inch (150-pounder) Parrott rifled gun and one XI-inch Dahlgren smoothbore in the aft turret. Although the new ship appeared to be formidable and stirred some concern among naval analysts in Great Britain, the Roanoke’s draft remained too great for inland operations, while its relatively small freeboard and rolling rendered it unsuitable for seagoing operations. Its initial sea voyage from New York to Hampton Roads removed all doubt as to the latter. Captain Benjamin F. Sands reported that the ship rolled so badly during the trip south that it would “preclude the possibility of fighting her guns at sea.” In addition to rendering its guns unserviceable, the heavy rolling would expose the ship’s sides to enemy shot below its iron plating. The Roanoke remained as a harbor-defense ship in the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron at Hampton Roads until the end of the war. Its great draft precluded it from going more than a mile or two above Newport News. Returning to New York under its own power in April 1865, it was decommissioned on June 20, 1865. The Roanoke was recommissioned briefly during June 13, 1874–June 12, 1875. Sold on September 17, 1883, it was broken up for scrap at Chester, Pennsylvania. Although of flawed design, the Roanoke was the first warship with three turrets located on the centerline and was, for many years, the world’s only triple-turreted warship. It and the British Navy’s turreted ironclad Prince Albert also foreshadowed the modern battleship, armed with all big guns in turrets on the centerline. Spencer C. Tucker

598 |â•‡ Roanoke Island, North Carolina, Union Capture of See also Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Brooklyn Navy Yard; Ericsson, John; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Ironclads, Union; Isherwood, Benjamin Franklin; Lenthall, John; Monitor, USS; Sands, Benjamin Franklin; Virginia, CSS; Welles, Gideon

References Canney, Donald L. The Old Steam Navy. 2 vols. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1990, 1993. Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 9. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1899. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. II, Vol. 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1921.

Roanoke Island, North Carolina, Union Capture of Start Date: February 7, 1862 End Date: February 8, 1862 Successful Union amphibious operation. Union possession of the Hatteras Island forts offered a base for further amphibious operations against eastern North Carolina. West of the Outer Banks were six sounds, the two largest being Pamlico and Albemarle. The Confederacy had no effective means of preventing Union ships from operating on these sounds or against a number of major cities in the region. Roanoke Island lies at the northern end of Pamlico Sound. The island controlled passage between Pamlico Sound to the south and Albemarle Sound to the north and west. It also dominated access to the southern termini of the Dismal Swamp Canal and the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal, both of which reached to Norfolk, Virginia. Union forces already controlled Pamlico Sound. Securing Roanoke Island would give them access to Albemarle Sound, with its rivers leading into interior North Carolina and over which railroads ran north on bridges to Norfolk. In Union hands, troops might strike from Roanoke Island against Norfolk, while shallow-draft Union warships could use the sound as an anchorage. Flag Officer Louis M. Goldsborough, commanding the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, and Army Brigadier general Ambrose Burnside commanded the Roanoke Island operation. Sometimes known as the Burnside Expedition, it departed Hampton Roads in mid-January. Because of the shallow water in which they would have to operate, Goldsborough’s 20 ships were all converted tugs, river steamers, and ferryboats. Most were lightly armed. Goldsborough’s flagship, the Philadelphia, for example, was a 504-ton iron-hulled, side-wheeler former passenger steamer armed with two 12-pounder Dahlgren rifled boat howitzers. Command

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problems were compounded by the fact that Burnside had actual charge of the army’s vessels, including some gunboats. Goldsborough’s ships were to provide protection for some 70 transports, carrying Burnside’s 12,000 troops and their supplies. Once all the ships were in position, the navy was to shell the shore installations and engage any hostile warships, as well as provide fire support once the troops were ashore. Goldsborough had to overcome major problems in assembling the task force. Once at Hatteras Inlet, a number of the deeper-draft army vessels had to be substantially lightened. Other vessels were kedged over the bar. A severe storm also scattered many of the ships. The army lost three: the City of New York, with ordnance and supplies; the Pocahontas, with 100 horses; and the army gunboat Zouave. As a result, the warships and transports were not in place until February 5. Early that morning, Goldsborough ordered the ships to get under way, and that night all anchored at Stumpy Point. The flotilla proceeded on the morning of February 6, but in late morning the weather turned foggy and rainy, forcing it again to anchor. The morning of February 7 was clear, and the ships were soon again under way, carefully threading their way through the narrow channel west of the southern tip of Roanoke Island and entering Croatan Sound, which in the best of conditions was only 7.5 feet deep. The ships were in two divisions, the warships leading and the transports behind. Although they were well aware of the Union preparations, Confederate authorities had few warships, guns, or troops available. Former Virginia governor, now Confederate brigadier general Henry A. Wise commanded Roanoke Island with two North Carolina regiments totaling 1,435 men. Another 800 Confederates were in reserve at Nags Head. Roanoke Island contained five forts with a total of 30 guns. The largest, Fort Huger on Weir’s Point, mounted 12 guns but was at the narrowest, northern part of Croatan Sound between the island and the mainland, and thus was beyond the range of the proposed Union landing site. The chief concern for the Union troops was Fort Bartow, with 9 guns located at Pork Point. Another fort, Fort Forrest, with 8 guns, lay directly across the sound from Pork Point. Wise ordered that a double line of piles be placed about 10 feet apart to span the 2 miles of water between the two forts. On the Union approach, the Confederates sank a number of small vessels to strengthen this barrier. Behind it, Flag Officer William F. Lynch commanded seven small steamers mounting a total of only 8 guns. At 10:30 a.m. on February 7, as the Union ships moved slowly up Croatan Sound, Lynch’s ships hovered behind the obstructions. On news that there were no Confederate defenses at Sand Point on Roanoke Island, the transports moved in, ready to disembark their troops at nearby Ashby’s Harbor south of Sand Point, several miles south of the main Confederate defenses. At the same time, Goldsborough ordered his 19 gunboats forward to shell the Confederate forts and ships. By noon the firing became general. Because of their

600 |â•‡ Roanoke Island, North Carolina, Union Capture of

distance from the battle scene, the Confederate forts north of the obstructions could not participate, and only four of Bartow’s guns could engage the Union gunboats. At 1:30 p.m. Union shells set on fire the barracks behind Fort Bartow, which soon was burning out of control. The Union gunboats mounted a total of 57 guns; many of these were larger and of greater range than the 8 Confederate guns. Lynch reported that whenever his ships approached the barrier, the Union ships concentrated their fire on them. Although only six Confederates were wounded, three seriously, damage to the Southern ships was extensive. The largest, the side-wheeler steamer Curlew, mounting a single rifled 32-pounder, took a shell that passed through its magazine without exploding but then drove out one of the iron plates forming the ship’s bottom. Its crew promptly ran the steamer ashore, where it sank. The screw steamer Forrest, also armed with a single 32-pounder, was disabled by a displaced propeller. The Union warships escaped serious injury, thanks to the accuracy of their own fire and their continued maneuvering. The Confederate ships kept up an intermittent fire but were soon short of ammunition, and in late afternoon Lynch ordered his remaining ships to take the Forrest in tow and proceed to Elizabeth City, 35 miles up Albemarle Sound, for resupply. With little ammunition there as well, Lynch sent an officer to Norfolk to obtain it. Securing fuel and ammunition sufficient for only two of his ships, Lynch was en route back to Roanoke Island when he learned of the surrender of Confederate forces there. The earthen works of Fort Bartow on Pork Point had been hard hit by the Union bombardment. The ex-ferryboat and side-wheeler Commodore Perry steamed in to within 800 yards of Bartow and fired nearly 200 rounds. It was hit seven times by Confederate fire. One shot passed through the ship’s magazine and an empty powder tank; another passed between the engine and boiler, but there was no major damage. At about 5:00 p.m., with darkness coming on, Goldsborough ordered his ships to cease fire. Meanwhile, beginning at 3:00 p.m. on February 7, Union troops began going ashore on Roanoke Island. They soon came under fire from a Confederate field gun, and the steamer Delaware moved in to clear their way, firing shrapnel from its IX-inch Dahlgren. At the same time, six Dahlgren howitzers on field mounts were landed in launches. Once ashore, these were positioned to provide security for the landing area. Other troops continued to come ashore, and by midnight some 10,000 were on the island. The next day, February 8, the Union soldiers got under way at first light, and by 9:00 a.m. the fighting was general. The Union ships moved in to support the land advance by again taking the forts under fire. The Union soldiers had little difficulty with the outnumbered Confederates. By 4:00 p.m. the troops raised the American flag over Pork Point, while the Confederates set fire to the Curlew and blew it up. Meanwhile, Union gunboat crews cleared a path through the obstructions across the sound, and by 4:00 p.m. the ships were through these into Albemarle Sound.

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Unable to do more than offer token, long-range resistance, Lynch withdrew with his gunboats up the Pasquotank River. The battle of Roanoke Island was a major Union victory, won at surprisingly little cost. Although its ships had been hit numerous times, Union Navy losses were only 6 men killed, 17 wounded, and 2 missing. These figures also include 3 killed and 5 wounded in the boat howitzer battery. The U.S. Army sustained just more than 250 casualties, with 47 of them killed. In turn, the Union soldiers captured nearly 2,000 Confederates, including 500 reinforcements arriving just in time to surrender. Spencer C. Tucker See also Albemarle Sound; Amphibious Warfare; Blockade of the Confederacy; Dahlgren Boat Howitzers; Goldsborough, Louis Malesherbes; Lynch, William Francis; Mosquito Fleet; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron

References Browning, Robert M., Jr. From Cape Charles to Cape Fear: The North Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1993. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 6. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1897.

Rodgers, John Birth Date: August 12, 1812 Death Date: May 5, 1882 U.S. Navy admiral. Born in Havre de Grace, Maryland, on August 12, 1812, John Rodgers was the son of Commodore John Rodgers, who won renown during the Barbary Wars and the War of 1812. Rodgers joined the navy as a midshipman on April 18, 1828, and served in the Mediterranean in the frigate Constellation and sloop Concord. He was promoted to passed midshipman on June 14, 1834. Rodgers attended the University of Virginia for a year before returning to sea. He then served in the Brazil Squadron and participated in the Second Seminole War (1835–1842) before completing additional tours at sea, including in the Mediterranean and off Africa. He was promoted to lieutenant on January 28, 1840. In 1852 Lieutenant Rodgers assumed command of the North Pacific Exploring Expedition, which surveyed the northern Bering Sea. He was promoted to commander on September 14, 1855. In January 1861 Rodgers had been in the navy for some 31 years: 19 years afloat, 7 years in assignments ashore, and 5 years awaiting orders in a navy with too many officers for available assignments. Rodgers was in Washington, D.C., compiling and editing the reports of these endeavors when the Civil War began in April 1861.

602 |â•‡ Rodgers, John

Rodgers participated in the botched destruction of the Norfolk Navy Yard, Virginia, in April 1861, and was taken prisoner with others by the Virginia forces. As Virginia had not yet joined the Confederacy, the legislature in Richmond decided to free Rodgers and his fellows. On May 15 Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles ordered Rodgers to Cincinnati, Ohio, to supervise the conversion into gunboats of civilian vessels purchased by the army. These were the “timberclads,” the first units of the Mississippi Flotilla. In the course of these endeavors Rodgers clashed with Major General James C. Frémont, commander of the Western Department, who caused his recall. Assigned to the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, Rodgers commanded the screw combatant Flag in Commodore Samuel F. Du Pont’s expedition against Port Royal, South Carolina, in November 1862, and took an active role in the surrender of Confederate forts Walker and Beauregard. On May 15, 1862, Rodgers led a squadron up the James River and, in the ironclad Galena, engaged Confederate shore batteries in the four-hour-long Battle of Drewry’s Bluff, in which the Galena was badly damaged and the attempt to reach Richmond was rebuffed. Rodgers was promoted to captain on July 16, 1862. Rodgers rejoined Du Pont’s squadron and, in command of the monitor Weehawken, led the failed attack on Charleston on April 7, 1863, in which the monitor absorbed a number of hits and was badly damaged. On June 17 in Wassaw Sound, however, Rodgers’s repaired Weehawken defeated the Confederate ironclad Atlanta. Rodgers received promotion to commodore on June 17, 1863, and took command of the monitors Canonicus and Dictator, both of which were troubled with developmental problems. Rodgers saw no further fighting in the war. After the war, Rodgers commanded a squadron off Chile and then had charge of the Boston Navy Yard. He was promoted to rear admiral on December 31, 1869. Rodgers commanded the Asiatic Squadron on a diplomatic mission to investigate the imprisonment and murder of American seamen aboard the merchantman General Sherman. The U.S. government also wanted a treaty to guarantee proper treatment for shipwrecked sailors, as well as diplomatic ties and trade relations with Korea. A diplomatic impasse, however, quickly turned into armed conflict. On June 10, 1871, as Rodgers ascended the Taedong River with his ships, a Korean fort opened fire. Rodgers demanded an apology and, with none forthcoming, sent sailors and marines ashore. They stormed three Korean forts and killed several hundred Koreans. This action failed to sway the Koreans to open diplomatic relations; the Americans soon withdrew, and Rodgers returned to the United States in 1872. He subsequently served on various naval boards and also commanded the Naval Observatory before dying at Washington, D.C., on May 5, 1882. Spencer C. Tucker See also Atlanta, CSS; Boston Navy Yard; Charleston, South Carolina, Du Pont’s Attack on; Conestoga, USS; Dictator, USS; Drewry’s Bluff, First Battle of; Du Pont, Samuel Francis; Galena, USS; Ironclads, Union; James River; Lexington, USS; Mississippi Squadron,

Rowan, Stephen Cleggâ•‡ | 603

U.S. Navy; Port Royal Sound, Battle of; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Timberclads; Tyler, USS; Wassaw Sound, Battle of; Welles, Gideon

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Johnson, Robert E. “John Rodgers: The Quintessential Nineteenth Century Naval Officer.” In Captains of the Old Steam Navy, edited by James C. Bradford, 253–274. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1986. Johnson, Robert E. Rear Admiral John Rodgers, 1812–1882. Annapolis, MD: U.S. Naval Institute, 1967. Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001.

Rowan, Stephen Clegg Birth Date: December 15, 1808 Death Date: March 31, 1890 U.S. Navy officer. Born near Dublin, Ireland, on December 15, 1808, Stephen Clegg Rowan immigrated as a child with his family to the United States and settled in Ohio. Rowan received a midshipman’s warrant in the navy on February 1, 1826. He was promoted to passed midshipman on April 28, 1832; to lieutenant on March 3, 1837; and to commander on September 14, 1855. At the beginning of 1861, Rowan had been in the navy for nearly 35 years: some 18 years in service at sea, 10 years of assignments ashore, and 6 years awaiting orders in a navy that had too many officers for available assignments. In early 1861 Rowan commanded the steam sloop USS Pawnee at Washington, D.C., and helped furnish security for the capital at the time of Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration. Ordered to assist the effort to relieve Fort Sumter, he arrived at Charleston too late. He then assisted in the evacuation of the Norfolk (Gosport) Navy Yard, after which he served in the Potomac Flotilla, which had the assignment of keeping open the Potomac River and defeating Confederate batteries ashore. On May 24 Rowan and the Pawnee helped take Alexandria, Virginia, for the Union, and on June 1 his ship joined others of Commander James H. Ward’s Potomac Flotilla, already engaging Confederate shore batteries at Aquia Creek. He was also involved on June 27 in another action with Confederate shore batteries on the Potomac at Mathias Creek, in which Ward was killed. Assigned to the Atlantic Blockading Squadron in August, Rowan participated in the operation to secure the Confederate forts at Hatteras Inlet, North Carolina, under Flag Officer Silas H. Stringham, on August 29. The Pawnee then blockaded Hatteras Inlet until ordered to Alexandria, Virginia, where it arrived in early October.

604 |â•‡ Rowan, Stephen Clegg

Given command of the converted side-wheeler steamer Delaware on its commissioning in October 1861, Rowan was assigned to the new North Atlantic Blockading Squadron. He had charge of the fighting ships in Flag Officer Louis M. Goldsborough’s expedition to Roanoke Island and took part in the battle there on February 7–8, 1862, capturing Elizabeth City and Edenton. When Goldsborough departed on March 8–9, 1862, for Hampton Roads, on news of the fighting there involving CSS Virginia, Rowan transferred his flag to the steamer Philadelphia and commanded the Union ships in Albemarle and Pamlico sounds in Goldsborough’s U.S. Navy Commander Stephen C. Rowan, commanding the steam sloop Pawnee at absence. Rowan’s ships then assisted Washington, D.C., secured Alexandria, Union forces ashore in the capture of Virginia for the Union in May 1861. Later he New Bern, North Carolina, on March commanded the powerful ironclad New 14, and of Fort Macon on April 25, Ironsides off Charleston. He was promoted actions for which he subsequently to rear admiral after the war. received the Thanks of Congress. (National Archives) Rowan was promoted to captain on July 16, 1862. Following brief command of the side-wheel frigate Powhatan, Rowan was assigned command in late 1862 of the screw frigate Roanoke, which was undergoing conversion at New York into a turreted ironclad. When the recommissioned ship was found unsuitable for anything other than coastal defense and was assigned to Hampton Roads, Rowan was assigned in June 1863 to relieve Captain Thomas Turner as the commander of the powerful ironclad New Ironsides in the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron off Charleston, where he was the senior officer when Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren was on station. On October 7, 1863, Rowan’s ship survived an attack by the Confederate semisubmersible CSS David, which was armed with a spar torpedo. In early 1864 Rowan was promoted to commodore, his commission backdated to July 16, 1862. He commanded the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron while Dahlgren was in Washington from late February to early May 1864. After the New Ironsides was ordered to undergo repairs at the Philadelphia Navy Yard in June 1864, Rowan was on awaiting orders status. On September 1, 1864, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles ordered Rowan to assume command of Union forces in the North Carolina sounds. Perhaps for reasons of health, Rowan requested relief

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from this assignment, and he remained on awaiting orders status with no more active service during the Civil War. Promoted to rear admiral on July 1, 1866, Rowan served as commandant of the Norfolk (Gosport) Navy Yard during 1866–1867, and he commanded the Asiatic Squadron during 1867–1870. Rowan was promoted to vice admiral on August 15, 1870, the last U.S. Navy officer to hold that rank until World War I. After 1870 Rowan held a number of different posts, including commandant of the New York Navy Yard and port admiral of New York City (1872–1876), and chairman of the Lighthouse Board (1883–1889). Placed on the retired list at age 80 on February 28, 1889, Rowan died in Washington, D.C., on March 31, 1890. Spencer C. Tucker See also Albemarle Sound; Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Brooklyn Navy Yard; Dahlgren, John Adolph Bernard; Davids, CSS; Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, Relief Efforts and Beginning of the Civil War; Goldsborough, Louis Malesherbes; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Hatteras Inlet, Union Assault on; Lincoln, Abraham; New Bern, North Carolina, Capture of; New Ironsides, USS; Norfolk Navy Yard; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Pawnee, USS; Philadelphia Navy Yard; Potomac Flotilla; Powhatan, USS; Roanoke, USS; Roanoke Island, North Carolina, Union Capture of; Spar Torpedo; Stringham, Silas Horton; Turner, Thomas; Virginia, CSS; Ward, James Harmon; Welles, Gideon

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Roberts, William H. New Ironsides in the Civil War. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1999. Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001.

Russian Fleet Visits to New York and San Francisco Event Date: Winter 1863–1864 In September 1863 the Russian Baltic Fleet, under the command of Rear Admiral Nikolai Mikhailovich Lisovskii, unexpectedly sailed into New York Harbor. This was followed a month later by the arrival of the Russian Asiatic Fleet, under the command of Rear Admiral Andrey Alexandrovich Popov, at the port of San Francisco. The U.S. government cordially received both fleets, and Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles offered the services of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Mare Island Navy Yard, and the U.S. Navy Department to the visitors. The political atmosphere in Europe and geostrategic circumstances had brought about these developments. Poland had begun a revolt against Russian rule in February 1861, which prompted a stern response from Tsar Alexander II. Citing the

606 |â•‡ Russian Fleet Visits to New York and San Francisco

Congress of Vienna (1815), France, Britain, and Austria purported that the Polish question was an international concern rather than a local Russian matter. Anticipating war, Russian leaders devised a plan to move their small navy out of their own harbors, where it would either be frozen in by ice or potentially blockaded by belligerent European nations. The fleets were ordered to seek sanctuary in the United States, and upon a declaration of war, to raid French and British commercial shipping on the high seas. Although no official treaty existed between the United States and Russia, the Russians had good reason to expect a friendly reception from the Americans based on mutual interests. Tsar Alexander had freed the serfs, just as President Abraham Lincoln was trying to free the slaves. When asked by France to join the coalition against Russia, the United States refused, just as Russia had refused to intervene in the Civil War. Both countries were attempting to suppress a rebellion, and with France and England’s intentions toward the Confederacy still uncertain, Russia, more than any other European nation, proved to be a reliable U.S. ally. The Russian visits generated much excitement throughout the Union. First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln, as well as Rear Admiral David G. Farragut, called upon LiÂ�sovÂ� skii, and a grand ball was held in New York City to honor the Russian sailors. In San Francisco, Admiral Popov’s crews assisted in extinguishing a large fire that had broken out in the city. Popov went even further, offering to protect San Francisco Harbor in case of an attack from Confederate ships. The Russian naval strategy was so secret that the British did not discover it until Lisovskii’s ships had moored in New York. Great Britain, worried about its interests in Asia and the potential of the Russian fleets to harass its shipping, thus decided to avoid war. On April 26, 1864, a grateful Tsar Alexander recalled his navy. William E. Whyte III See also Brooklyn Navy Yard; Farragut, David Glasgow; Lincoln, Abraham; Mare Island Navy Yard; Welles, Gideon

References Golder, F. A. “The Russian Fleet and the Civil War.” American Historical Review 20(4) (1915): 801–812. Randall, J. G., and Richard N. Current. Lincoln the President, Vol. 4, The Last Full Measure. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2000.

S Sabine Pass, First Battle of Event Date: September 25, 1862 Small naval engagement that occurred on September 25, 1862, at Sabine Pass, Texas, close to the mouth of the Sabine River. Sabine Pass is located some 15 miles south of Port Arthur, Texas, near the Louisiana border in eastern Texas. Just east of Beaumont, Texas, the Sabine River forms the dividing line between southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana. The river’s mouth, known as Sabine Pass, is the access point for the port of Beaumont, which gave it significant strategic importance during the Civil War. Both Union and Confederate forces sought to control Sabine Pass during the war. A railroad line from near Beaumont to Houston provided access to the interior of Texas. The Beaumont area did not export as much cotton as Houston or New Orleans, but it was nevertheless a major export point as well as an entry point for arms, ammunition, and other imports from Europe. The effort to control Sabine Pass triggered two battles, one in 1862 and the other in 1863, with markedly different outcomes. The First Battle of Sabine Pass occurred as part of the larger Union effort to capture the Texas port of Galveston. Although the Union had established a blockade of the Texas Gulf Coast soon after the war’s outbreak in 1861, it had been only marginally effective. Cotton still moved overland to the rest of the Confederacy, and Texas could still export the crop through Matamoros in northeastern Mexico. Union commanders in New Orleans believed that Union control of Galveston and the rest of the southeast Texas Gulf Coast was necessary to isolate Texas from the rest of the Confederacy. It was in this context that the First Battle of Sabine Pass occurred. Although the engagement may be regarded as more of a skirmish than a battle, it was significant in giving Union forces better access to the entire Texas Gulf Coast and providing them the opportunity to prepare for the larger battle for Galveston, which was still to come. The exploratory effort at Sabine Pass, which was over quickly, pitted a strong Union flotilla against a much weaker Confederate garrison. On September 25, 1862, the fourth-rate screw auxiliary Kensington (three guns), schooner Rachel Seaman (two guns), and mortar schooner Henry James appeared off the entrance to Sabine Pass and began shelling Fort Gibson at a distance of three miles. They hoped to draw Confederate fire so that they could determine the caliber and number of the defenders’ guns. But the fort was garrisoned with just 30 infantry and 607

608 |â•‡ Sabine Pass, Second Battle of

artillerists and a contingent of 30 cavalrymen, whose antiquated few guns were incapable of reaching the Union ships. When the defenders did not return fire, the Union ships sailed into the Sabine River and bombarded the fort at closer range until the Confederate defenders spiked their guns and withdrew. Following the bombardment, a Union force landed and destroyed Fort Gibson. The next day the Union sailors took the surrender of Sabine City and destroyed the railroad bridge connecting Sabine City to Taylor’s Bayou. The Union force was too small to occupy the area, however, and it then withdrew to join the larger effort against Galveston. The success of this first Union attack at Sabine Pass and the disruptive effects of the attack on the Confederate strategic position in Texas convinced Confederate commanders of the need to strengthen the defenses of Sabine Pass. Following the successful Confederate effort to retake Galveston in January 1863, Major General John B. Magruder, the commanding general of Confederate forces in Texas, planned stronger defenses in Sabine Pass. In consequence, a Union effort to capture the pass a year later would have radically different results. Walter F. Bell See also Amphibious Warfare; Blockade of the Confederacy; Galveston, Battle of; Gulf of Mexico; Riverine Warfare; Sabine Pass, Second Battle of; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Cotham, Edward T. Sabine Pass: The Confederacy’s Thermopylae. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004. Hawkins A. W. R., III. “The Most Extraordinary Feat of the War.” Civil War Times 45(6) (August 2006): 36–43.

Sabine Pass, Second Battle of Event Date: September 8, 1863 Battle between Union and Confederate forces that took place on September 8, 1863, at Sabine Pass, Texas, which ended in the repulse of an assault of a large combined Union expeditionary force by a Confederate garrison of just 42 men. Sabine Pass is located some 15 miles south of Port Arthur, Texas, near the Louisiana border in eastern Texas. Just east of Beaumont, Texas, the Sabine River is the dividing line between southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana. The river’s mouth, known as Sabine Pass, is the access point for the port of Beaumont, which during the Civil War gave it significant strategic importance. This second Union attempt to force open Sabine Pass grew out of the same considerations that had triggered the First Battle of Sabine Pass a year earlier on September 25, 1862. Union forces had also been ejected from Galveston in January 1863. U.S. Army major general Nathaniel Banks was still seeking ways to break

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into the Texas interior through an operation on the Gulf Coast, and he also sought to avenge the Galveston defeat. By the autumn of 1863 Texas appeared open to invasion from several different directions, and Banks believed that he saw an opportunity at Sabine Pass. He knew that a Union force had landed there successfully in September 1862 and believed that the pass would still be lightly defended. Thus, he ordered Brigadier General William B. Franklin to take 5,000 troops from New Orleans, seize Sabine Pass and Beaumont, and attack into the Texas interior. Franklin’s force numbered 3 infantry brigades, 10 artillery batteries, and 4 companies of the 1st Texas Cavalry (USA). The men would be transported to Sabine Pass in seven transports, escorted by four gunboats—the Clifton, Sachem, Granite City and Arizona—under the overall command of Lieutenant Frederick Crocker. The Union side was unaware that the Confederate commander in Texas, Major General John B. Magruder, had ordered Sabine Pass’s defenses to be strengthened. Confederate engineers had constructed a new fortification, Fort Griffin, just north of the one destroyed a year earlier at the narrowest point of the Pass where attacking ships would have the greatest difficulty maneuvering. An earthwork fort with thick walls, Griffin could withstand shelling from most Union guns. It mounted six cannon: two 24-pounders and four 32-pounders. At the time of the attack, Fort Griffin was garrisoned by 44 men from Company F of the 1st Texas Artillery Regiment commanded by Lieutenant Richard W. Dowling. The garrison had diligently practiced its gunnery, and the gunners had carefully determined ranges and marked the aiming points with stakes to enhance accuracy. The Union force that approached Sabine Pass on September 8, 1863, thus faced much stronger defenses than had been the case a year earlier. Poor coordination and communication further hindered the Union operation. The Granite City had been sent ahead to mark the channel. Its crew thought it sighted the Confederate raider Alabama, and the Granite City promptly fled. It took time for its consorts to locate it again. This delayed the start of the attack and alerted the defenders. The Union plan called for the gunboats to enter the channel and provide covering fire for the Union troops as they went ashore. On the morning of September 8, Crocker began the attack with his flagship, the Clifton. It crossed the bar and attempted to draw fire from the fort to determine the strength of the Confederate defenses. It lobbed 26 shells at the Confederates but received no return fire. Crocker then ordered the other gunboats, Scahem, Arizona, and Granite City, and the transports over the bar. At about 3:30 p.m., the gunboats and transports started up the pass. The Sachem and Arizona City advanced up the east (Louisiana) side of the channel, while the Clifton and Granite City moved up the west (Texas) side. The Confederate gunners withheld fire until the gunboats were among the aiming stakes and the Confederates had the precise range. They then let loose a devastating fire. The Sachem was holed several times; one 24-pounder shot went through its boiler, disabling the gunboat. Another shot carried away the wheel rope of the Clifton, causing it

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to ground under the Confederate guns. Crocker fought the Clifton until, with 10 men killed and 9 others wounded, he believed he had no other choice but to surrender. The Sachem also surrendered and was promptly taken under tow by the Confederate cottonclad Uncle Ben. Under these circumstances, General Franklin called off the landing and ordered his transports back across. Two of the transports grounded, leading Franklin to order scores of hobbled horses and mules as well as some 200,000 rations thrown overboard to lighten the load. The transports and two remaining gunboats then returned to New Orleans. In the abortive attack, the Union side lost nearly 70 men, killed, wounded, or missing, and another 315 captured. Confederate casualties are unknown. In this lopsided Confederate victory, considerable credit belongs to the engineers who positioned and constructed Fort Griffin, the careful preparations by its garrison, and poor planning and coordination of Union forces, particularly Franklin’s failure to land his troops and support the gunboats with an overland attack. Had the attack succeeded, the Union troops would have easily taken Beaumont. Walter F. Bell and Spencer C. Tucker See also Alabama, CSS; Amphibious Warfare; Blockade of the Confederacy; Cottonclads; Galveston, Battle of; Gulf of Mexico; Riverine Warfare; Sabine Pass, First Battle of; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Cotham, Edward T. Sabine Pass: The Confederacy’s Thermopylae. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004. Frazier, Donald S. Cottonclads! The Battle of Galveston and the Defense of the Texas Coast. Abilene, TX: McWhiney Foundation Press, McMurray University, 1998.

Sackets Harbor Naval Station Naval station located at Sackets Harbor, New York, on Lake Ontario. Because of its protected harbor, Sackets Harbor played a key role in the War of 1812 as a major U.S. naval shipyard and army base and was the site of two battles. By the Civil War, the naval presence consisted basically of USS New Orleans, a ship of the line on the stocks that had been laid down in 1815 and was never completed, but Sackets Harbor was officially termed a naval station. Commodore Elie A. F. Lavallette, on the retired list, had command there during 1861–1862. Sackets Harbor’s Madison Barracks also served as a U.S. Army recruiting station and training center during the war. Spencer C. Tucker See also Lavallette, Elie Augustus Frederick

Reference Canney, Donald L. Lincoln’s Navy: The Ships, Men and Organization, 1861–65. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998.

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Sands, Benjamin Franklin Birth Date: February 11, 1812 Death Date: June 30, 1883 U.S. Navy officer. Benjamin Franklin Sands was born in Baltimore on February 11, 1812. His family soon moved to Louisville, Kentucky, where he lived until age 16. After a year of school in Washington, D.C., he received an appointment to the U.S. Navy as a midshipman on April 1, 1828. During a career that spanned 46 years, Sands spent much of his time in coast survey work and became an expert at naval surveying and hydrography. Among his inventions to facilitate survey work were a deep-sea sounding apparatus and other hydrographic instruments. Following sea duty in the Brazilian Squadron and the West Indies, Sands was appointed a passed midshipman on June 14, 1834. For several years he performed coast survey work. He was commissioned a lieutenant on March 16, 1840. After service in the Mediterranean, he was assigned to the Bureau of Charts and Instruments at the Naval Observatory in 1844. During the Mexican-American War (1846–1848), Sands served in the Home Squadron and then saw action off Tabasco and Tuxpan. He then served as a commander in the African Squadron. He returned to coast survey duties in 1851 in command of the steamer Walker and continued that work until 1858 during which time he was promoted to commander on September 14, 1855. In 1858, he became chief of the Naval Bureau of Construction where he served until 1861. After the secession of Virginia in April 1861, Sands supervised the burning of ships and warehouses during the evacuation of Union forces and ships from the Norfolk (Gosport) Navy Yard. Probably due to navy officials’ suspicions of officers from border states, Sands’s next assignment to survey the Pacific coast was far from the war theater. He was reassigned to the Atlantic coast within a year and promoted to captain on July 26, 1862. In October 1862, Sands became a senior officer assigned to the blockade of the Cape Fear River and Wilmington, North Carolina. To deal with the difficulty of maintaining the blockade against small, fast vessels, Sands devised a plan to use an additional outer line of blockaders. His creative formation resulted in the successful capture of more than 50 blockade-runners. The division also participated in the naval attacks on Fort Fisher, North Carolina, during December 24–25, 1864, and January 13–15, 1865. In the last months of the war, Sands commanded a division of the West Gulf Blockading Squadron that took possession of Galveston, Texas, following its surrender on June 2, 1865. After the war, Sands was promoted to commodore on July 26, 1866, and to rear admiral on April 27, 1871. From 1867 until his retirement on February 11, 1874, he headed the Naval Observatory. He continued to live in Washington, D.C., until his death there on June 30, 1883. Donna Smith

612 |â•‡ Savannah River See also Blockade of the Confederacy; Blockade-Runners; Coast Survey, U.S.; Fort Fisher Campaign; Galveston, Texas; Norfolk Navy Yard; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Hamersly, Lewis. The Records of Living Officers of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1870. Sands, Benjamin F. From Reefer to Rear-Admiral. New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1899. Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001.

Savannah River Major river located in the southeastern United States, about 325 miles long. The Savannah River forms most of the border between Georgia and South Carolina and runs southeast, emptying into the Atlantic Ocean about 15 miles to the east of Savannah, Georgia. The Savannah River drains an area encompassing 10,577 square miles, including the southeastern portions of the Appalachian Mountains as far north as the South Carolina–North Carolina border. The waterway is formed by the confluence of the Tugaloo and Seneca rivers; the Chattooga River also helps form the northwestern section of the river. Two important cities lie along the Savannah River: Augusta, located at the fall line (which separates the navigable part of the river from the largely nonnavigable part), and Savannah. The Savannah River is divided into three zones. The northern section traverses gentle, hilly terrain, where the climate is temperate but where seasonal change is most evident. Snowfall in this area is infrequent but by no means rare. The middle section, which includes Augusta, has a warmer climate and drains relatively flat terrain. The southern section, which includes the Savannah region, is semitropical. The climate is hot and humid in the summer and generally mild in the winter. Snowfall is rare. In both the middle and southern sections, alligators make their home in the river and its tributaries, posing a potential hazard for those crossing the waterway or wading in it. Toward the river’s mouth, around Savannah, the river forms a series of estuaries that drain into the Atlantic. The place where they converge is known as Tybee Roads. At the southern end of the waterway, the flat land and generally slow-moving waters create a vast network of expansive marshes, bayous, and cypress swamps. The Savannah is tidal north and west of Savannah; dredging in modern times has made it navigable to freight barges as far inland as Augusta. The modern port of Savannah was ranked the fourth-busiest port in the United States as of 2007.

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The Savannah River was critical to the settling of eastern and southern Georgia and western and southern South Carolina. Prior to the 18th century, the river valley was inhabited by numerous Native American tribes, including the Cherokee, Creek, Guale, Yamasee, Timucua, and Cusabo. Because there is little snowmelt draining into the Savannah River, seasonal flooding is tempered, although sections of the river can rise quickly during heavy rainstorms. Throughout much of the 19th century, the river’s sandy bottom shifted repeatedly, causing numerous accidents involving steamboats operating between Augusta and Savannah. Since then, dredging and the creation of numerous reservoirs in the northern section have alleviated those problems. Lake Hartwell now stands where the confluence of the Tugaloo and Seneca rivers once formed the river. During the Civil War, Augusta and Savannah were Georgia’s most important cities. Augusta was a strategic inland stronghold and the site of the Augusta Arsenal. Savannah, the site of the first English settlement in Georgia, was then the state’s largest city and its principal port. The mouth of the Savannah River to the east of downtown Savannah was protected by Fort Pulaski, located on Tybee Island, just south of Hilton Head Island, and by Fort McAllister, located to the south of Tybee. Fort Jackson, an old brick fort, protected the inland approaches to Savannah. The Union captured Fort Pulaski in the early days of the Civil War and blockaded the mouth of the Savannah River, thus strangling one of the South’s most important ports. The Confederacy’s Savannah River Squadron plied the southern section of the Savannah River from 1861 to 1864. In December 1864, Major General William T. Sherman ended his momentous March to the Sea in Savannah. Moved by the city’s beauty, Sherman did not destroy it, instead offering the city to President Abraham Lincoln as a “Christmas gift.” In the mid-20th century, the Savannah River area took on renewed military significance when the federal government constructed the Savannah River Site (SRS), located 25 miles downriver from Augusta. The SRS served as the major processing center for nuclear materials destined to be placed into nuclear warheads. Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr. See also Fort McAllister, Georgia, Union Attacks on; Georgia, CSS, Ironclad Floating Battery; Lincoln, Abraham; Riverine Warfare; Savannah River Squadron

References Elmore, Charles. Savannah, Georgia. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2002. Stokes, Thomas L. The Savannah. New York: Rinehart, 1951.

Savannah River Squadron Confederate riverine force based in the lower Savannah River area. Savannah, Georgia, was the second-largest port on the Confederacy’s Atlantic coast after

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Charleston, South Carolina, and was Georgia’s largest and most important city. Savannah served as a major commercial hub and industrial area, and it boasted North America’s largest cotton exchange. This vital area, which also included the entrance to the Savannah River, required a strong naval defense. The Savannah River Squadron was formed in 1861 with the twofold mission of guarding the water approaches to the city of Savannah, including the defense of Fort Pulaski on nearby Tybee Island, and operating in support of Confederate land forces. Early squadron warships consisted of converted small, wooden coastal river steamers. Later, they included large locally built ironclads. By the time the city fell to Major General William T. Sherman on December 17, 1864, two wooden gunboats and three ironclads had been launched, while another ironclad was just days away from completion; two others were planned but not yet built. In November 1861, the British-built blockade-runner Fingal arrived at Savannah. It was subsequently converted into the ironclad CSS Atlanta. It grounded and was captured in the course of an engagement with the U.S. Navy monitors Nahant and Weehawken on June 17, 1863. Commissioned in the U.S. Navy as USS Atlanta, it spent the rest of the war on the James River. CSS Georgia was commissioned in November 1862 and CSS Savannah II, the squadron flagship, was commissioned in the summer of 1863. Other ships of the squadron included the Water Witch, Wasp, Talomico, Sampson, Resolute, Chattahoochee, Firefly, Isondiga, Kate Bruce, Macon, Milledgville, Muscogee, Chicora, Lady Davis, and Oeonee. Both the Georgia and Savannah were blown up in December 1864 to prevent their capture by General Sherman’s forces. Robert A. Lynn See also Atlanta, CSS; Fingal, CSS; Flotilla; Georgia, CSS, Ironclad Floating Battery; Ironclads, Confederate; James River; Riverine Warfare; Savannah River; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Wassaw Sound, Battle of

References Durham, Roger S. Guardian of Savannah: Fort McAllister, Georgia in the Civil War and Beyond. Columbia: University of South Carolina, 2008. Still, William N., Jr. Iron Afloat: The Story of the Confederate Armorclads. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1985.

Schneck, James Findlay Birth Date: June 11, 1807 Death Date: December 21, 1882 U.S. Navy officer. James Findley Schneck was born in Franklin, Ohio, on June 11, 1807. His younger brother was Robert Schneck, a future Civil War general of volunteers. Schneck was briefly a cadet at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point,

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but resigned to accept a midshipman’s warrant in the navy on July 1, 1825. He was promoted to passed midshipman on June 4, 1832; to lieutenant on December 22, 1835; and to commander on September 14, 1855. At the beginning of 1861, Schneck had been in the navy for 35 years: 19 years in sea service, 1 year in assignment ashore, and 14 years awaiting orders in a navy with too many officers for available billets. Serving in the East India Squadron in command of the steam side-wheeler USS Saginaw when the Civil War began, Schneck returned to the United States in February 1862. In May he took command of the sailing frigate St. Lawrence in the East Gulf Blockading Squadron at Key West, Florida, and continued in that position until April 1863, when he was placed on awaiting orders status. Apparently Schneck was relieved from duty for some reason, for he was noted in the naval registers as not recommended for promotion into 1864. Reinstated on October 7, 1864, Schneck took command of the powerful sidewheeler sloop Powhatan in the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron with promotion to commodore backdated to January 2, 1863. He commanded the 3rd Division in Rear Admiral David D. Porter’s squadron during the campaign against Fort Fisher of December 1864–January 1865 and performed well. That Schneck had been earlier removed from command is confirmed in Porter’s report of Schneck’s outstanding service and that he had shown himself “worthy to command” and that Porter was glad to see Schneck “reinstated.” During February–March 1865, Schneck served as senior officer at Hampton Roads. Schneck commanded the naval station at Mound City, Illinois, during December 1865–November 1866 and then was awaiting orders until his retirement on June 11, 1869. In early 1871, he was promoted to rear admiral on the retired list, with the commission backdated to September 21, 1868. Schneck died in Dayton, Ohio, on December 21, 1882. Spencer C. Tucker See also East Gulf Blockading Squadron; Fort Fisher Campaign; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Porter, David Dixon; Powhatan, USS


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Scofield and Markham Gate City Iron Works Iron works established in Atlanta in 1858 and transformed by Lewis Scofield and William Markham into the South’s second-most productive rolling mill, after the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, Virginia. The mill’s specialty was rerolling worn out railroad rails. The owners, who were secretly Union sympathizers, sold the iron works to investors from Charleston, South Carolina, in 1863 for $600,000, and the factory was renamed the Atlanta Rolling Mill. It, the Tredegar, and the Shelby Iron Works of Alabama were the only Southern facilities that could produce the plate armor necessary for ironclads. It not only manufactured that but cannon as well. When the Confederate Army of Tennessee left Atlanta on September 1, 1864, it destroyed everything of military interest, which included the mill. Some of the machinery was dismantled beforehand and moved to Columbia, South Carolina, but it was never reassembled. Robert A. Lynn See also Columbus Navy Yard; Ironclads, Confederate; Shelby Iron Company; Tredegar Iron Works

References Dyer, Thomas G. Secret Yankees: The Union Circle in Confederate Atlanta. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. Still, William N., Jr. Iron Afloat: The Story of the Confederate Armorclads. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1985. Still, William N., Jr., ed. The Confederate Navy: The Ships, Men and Organization, 1861–65. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997.

Screw Propeller One of the most important technical advances of the modern world, the screw propeller had been the subject of speculation and experiment since the late 18th century, including its use in David Bushnell’s submarine Turtle in the American Revolutionary War. It was brought into practical service in the late 1830s by the English innovator Francis Pettit Smith and the Swedish engineer John Ericsson. Although the two men were working in London, their ideas and the forms they adopted for the propeller were quite distinct. Smith patented his “location” for the simple Archimedean screw in the deadwood ahead of the rudder. Ericsson patented a location aft of the rudder and a complex contra-rotating double screw. Smith secured powerful financial support to develop his ideas and constructed the 200ton ship Archimedes to prove the concept. Ericsson, who had no British backers, went to work with U.S. Navy captain Robert F. Stockton in the United States. Ericsson gradually shifted his own scheme closer to that of Smith.

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The two men played critical roles in the design of the first screw warships, USS Princeton and HMS Rattler, both of which entered service in 1843. The Rattler was engineered and tested by I. K. Brunel, who used the data gathered for work on his massive iron screw liner the Great Britain of 1843. The Rattler inspired an early and effective move into steam/sail warships by the British, while the career of the Princeton, and that of Ericsson, were compromised by the explosion of an experimental heavy gun, the Peacemaker, designed by Stockton. By the early 1850s, it was obvious to all major navies that the screw would replace both the paddle wheel steamer and the pure sailing ship. The British decided on an all screw steam navy in 1852. Technical problems inherent in using screw propellers in wooden ships restricted their use until the move to iron ships. Improved steaming efficiency in the late 1860s allowed screw-propelled ships to dispense with sails, most significantly in USS Monitor (1862) and the British battleship HMS Devastation (1871). Civil War steam warships utilized both side-wheels and screw propellers. Although other systems have been developed to apply power to drive warships, the screw, suitably refined, remains the basic propeller for modern warships. Unseen, and largely ignored, the screw made possible modern naval warfare and transoceanic commerce. Andrew Lambert See also Ericsson, John; Monitor, USS; Peacemaker, Explosion of

References Greenhill, Basil, ed. The Advent of Steam. London: Conway, 1994. Griffiths, Denis, Andrew Lambert, and Fred Walker. Brunel’s Ships. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000.

Seamen, Recruitment of With its much larger population than the Confederacy and tradition of seafaring in the northeast part of the country, the Union found it easier to secure adequate manpower for the ships of its ever-growing navy than did the Confederacy for its navy. The Union did initially experience problems securing trained seamen for its riverine forces in the western theater, while the Confederate Navy—given the paucity of available manpower—had difficulty throughout the war getting the army to release trained seamen from its ranks for naval service. Reasons for enlistment varied and included patriotism, regular pay and the lure of prize money, far superior living conditions to those experienced by soldiers on land, and the considerably smaller possibility of sailors becoming casualties in battle than that faced by soldiers. A particular incentive for those enlisting in the Confederate commerce raiders was the promise of payment in gold as well as a share of prize money.

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To serve in the U.S. Navy a recruit had to be at least four feet, eight inches tall and be 18 years old. No inexperienced men over age 35 were accepted, but men with naval experience were accepted up to age 38. By a regulation of 1863, boys could enlist at age 13, but only with parental consent. Although some U.S. Navy enlisted personnel came from the U.S. Army, most notably in the case of the gunboats on the western waters, the vast majority of seamen enlisted at regular recruiting stations. Known as “rendezvous,” these were located at the naval yards and in seaport cities where recruits were likely to be found. Shortages of seamen led both sides to offer bounties for long-term enlistment. In the Union Navy, this could be as much as $300, or two years’ pay, for a three-year enlistment. Bonuses were also paid for reenlistments. Early in 1862, the Confederate Navy offered a $50 bonus to any recruit enlisting for three years or for the duration of the war. The Confederate Congress passed a draft law in April 1862 that provided that any trained seaman in the army could apply for transfer to the navy. With the army refusing to release recruits and the demand high for trained seamen, in May 1863 the Congress passed a bill that required the army to release any seamen requested by the Navy Department who desired a transfer. Still, securing transfers continued to be difficult. Enlistment times in both navies varied from as little as a month in critical need to as long as the duration of the war. Three years was a normal term of enlistment early in the war for the U.S. Navy. Prohibition was in place against enlisting foreigners and the incompetent and “idiots,” but in the Civil War as throughout history recruiters often looked the other way. Both navies suffered from desertions, although no figures are available on the number. This was sufficient in the U.S. Navy for the department to hire detectives to try to chase down the culprits. Among the latter were “bounty jumpers,” individuals who signed on, received a significant bounty payment, and then deserted at the first opportunity in order to repeat the process in another location and under a different name. In the U.S. Navy a recruit was considered officially enlisted after he had signed a contract, commonly referred to as a shipping article, in the presence of a commissioned officer. This included the recruit’s date of enlistment; pay, with any advances and possible bounties; and rating. Following his enlistment, the recruit reported to one of a number of receiving ships to be issued clothing and equipment and perhaps receive some training prior to ship assignment. Spencer C. Tucker See also Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Discipline, Naval; Food and Drink aboard Ship; Ranks, Union and Confederate Navies; Receiving Ship; Shipboard Life

References Bennett, Michael J. Union Jacks: Yankee Sailors in the Civil War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004.

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Canney, Donald L. Lincoln’s Navy: The Ships, Men and Organization, 1861–65. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998. Still, William N., Jr., ed. The Confederate Navy: The Ships, Men and Organization, 1861–65. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Selfridge, Thomas Oliver, Jr. Birth Date: February 6, 1836 Death Date: February 4, 1924 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, on February 6, 1836, the son of a naval officer, Thomas Oliver Selfridge Jr. was appointed an acting midshipman on October 3, 1851. He was promoted to midshipman upon his graduation at the head of his class on June 10, 1854, from the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis. Selfridge was promoted to passed midshipman on November 22, 1856; to master on January 22, 1858; and to lieutenant on February 15, 1860. Selfridge distinguished himself as the second lieutenant aboard the sloop Cumberland during the engagement with the Confederate ironclad Virginia in Hampton Roads on March 8, 1862. He commanded the sloop’s forward battery until the ship was rammed and sunk by the Virginia. Selfridge was then the flag lieutenant in the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron. Selfridge was promoted to lieutenant commander on July 16, 1862, and assigned to command the ironclad Cairo in the Mississippi Squadron. He gave the mistaken order that led to his ship striking two torpedoes (mines) and sinking in the Yazoo River on December 12, 1862. Selfridge escaped reprimand but was much criticized for his actions. One fellow officer noted, “Selfridge of the Cairo found two torpedoes and removed them by placing his vessel over them.” Selfridge next commanded one of the naval siege batteries in the Battle of Vicksburg and after that had charge of the timberclad Conestoga, which became the third ship in which he was an officer to be sunk when it collided below Grand Gulf, Mississippi, with the U.S. Navy river gunboat General Price on March 8, 1864. He then commanded the large tinclad Manitou. Selfridge commanded the ironclad Osage during the Red River Campaign. On March 16 he led 150 men ashore to take possession of Alexandria, and on April 12 at Blair’s Landing his ship’s guns inflicted significant casualties on a Confederate troop concentration ashore in which the Confederates suffered a reported 300 casualties to 7 of his own. Selfridge then commanded the ram Vindicator and the 5th Division of the Mississippi Squadron. Transferred to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, Selfridge commanded the screw gunboat Huron in the two attacks on Fort Fisher in December 1864 and January 1865, and he had

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charge of the naval landing party that contributed materially to the success of the second attack. Promoted to commander on December 31, 1869, Selfridge commanded an expedition to explore the possibility of constructing an international canal across the Isthmus of Darien, surveying several possible routes during 1870–1873. He commanded the gunboat Enterprise on the North Atlantic Station during 1877–1880, when he also surveyed the Amazon River. He was advanced to captain on February 24, 1881, and took charge of the Torpedo Station at Newport Rhode Island, until 1885. He then commanded the steam sloop Omaha in the Asiatic Squadron, when he was tried and then acquitted by a court-martial on a charge of criminal neglect, when during target practice off a Japanese island the bursting of an unexploded shell on the island caused the deaths of four Japanese. Selfridge was promoted to commodore on April 11, 1894, and to rear admiral on February 28, 1896. He retired from the navy on February 6, 1898, and died in Washington, D.C., on February 4, 1924. Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Cairo, USS; Cairo-Class River Ironclads; Conestoga, USS; Fort Fisher Campaign; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Ironclads, Union; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Naval Academy, United States; Neosho and Osage, USS; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Red River; Red River Campaign; Timberclads; Tinclads; Vicksburg Campaign; Virginia, CSS; Yazoo River


Selma Naval Gun Foundry Major Confederate Navy ordnance facility located at Selma, Alabama. The sole prewar source for the manufacture of heavy guns in the South was the Tredegar Iron Works at Richmond, Virginia, and during the conflict it produced the bulk of ordnance for the Confederacy. But Richmond and nearby iron supply sources appeared vulnerable to Union attack, and Southern leaders were anxious to establish additional manufacturing facilities for heavy ordnance in the Deep South. Toward that end the government purchased the Alabama Manufacturing Company, owned by Atlanta businessman Colin McRae and located at Selma, Alabama. Originally established for the Confederate Army in 1862 and run first by McRae and then by Major N. R. Chambliss, the facility was plagued by shortages of workers (the army routinely refused requests for the release of skilled workmen), as well as strikes, desertion of workers, and slow deliveries of coal and iron. With little

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accomplished, in the spring of 1863 the army turned the facility over to the navy. It became the Selma Naval Gun Foundry, and was charged with casting Brooke rifled guns, chiefly for use against Union ironclads. Commodore Catesby ap Roger Jones arrived in Selma in May 1863 with orders to get the facility into operation as quickly as possible. Not until early 1864 was the facility able to produce 7-inch Brooke guns, the first of which went to arm the ironclad Tennessee. Among the guns cast there were the 6.4-inch and 7-inch Brooke rifles, and 8-, 10-, and 11-inch Brooke smoothbores. Production of heavy guns at Selma was hampered by the paucity of skilled labor (the army continued to drag its feet on the release of skilled workers) and of proper gun iron. In all, 102 Brooke guns were cast at Selma for the navy, along with 20 mortars and several small Parrott rifled guns. The facility also produced large-caliber shot and shell for both the army and navy. On April 2, 1865, Union forces under Major General James H. Wilson entered Selma, bringing the destruction of its naval gun foundry and rolling mill, as well as the army ordnance complex there. Spencer C. Tucker See also Brooke Guns; Ironclads, Confederate; Jones, Catesby ap Roger; Tennessee, CSS; Tredegar Iron Works

References Daniel, Larry J., and Riley W. Gunter. Confederate Cannon Foundries. Union City, TN: Pioneer, 1977. Still, William N., Jr., ed. The Confederate Navy: The Ships, Men and Organization, 1861–65. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997.

Semmes, Raphael Birth Date: September 27, 1809 Death Date: August 30, 1877 Confederate admiral, general, and the captain of the commerce raider Alabama. Raphael Semmes was born on September 27, 1809, in Charles County, Maryland. His parents died early in his childhood and he was raised by relatives in Georgetown in Washington, D.C. On April 1, 1826, Semmes was granted an appointment as a midshipman in the U.S. Navy. Although he had an excellent record, promotion was slow in the peacetime navy and it was not until February 9, 1837, that he made lieutenant. In long leaves of absence ashore, Semmes took up the study of law, which profession he followed when not at sea. From 1837 until the Mexican-American War (1846–1848), Semmes spent most of his time on survey work along the southern coast and Gulf of Mexico. In 1841 the navy ordered him to survey Mississippi Sound, and at that time he established his legal residence in Alabama. During the Mexican-American War,

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Semmes commanded the brig Somers. In December 1846, while off the eastern coast of Mexico, it sank in a sudden squall. Half the crew was lost, but a court-martial found Semmes blameless. In March 1847, Semmes took part in the capture of Veracruz; later he participated in the expedition against Tuxpan and accompanied Major General Winfield Scott’s forces to Mexico City as an aide to division commander Major General William Worth, who cited Semmes for bravery. Following the war, Semmes again found himself in a navy with too many officers, and he spent much of his time on leave at the family home in AlaCaptain Raphael Semmes commanded the bama. In 1852, he published Service first Confederate commerce raider, the Sumter, but won lasting fame as commander Afloat and Ashore during the Mexican of CSS Alabama. During a two-year spree, War. Ironically, in view of later events, Semmes wreaked havoc on northern Semmes argued that if Mexico had shipping. In these two commerce raiders, employed privateers against U.S. shipSemmes captured 84 Union merchantmen. ping they should have been treated as He also sank a U.S. Navy warship, but in pirates. On September 14, 1855, he June 1864 he lost a single-ship duel with USS Kearsarge. One of two Southern rear won promotion to commander and in admirals, Semmes was also at the end of the 1856 was posted to Washington as a war an army brigadier general—the only member of the Lighthouse Board. At Confederate to hold flag rank in both the beginning of 1861, Semmes had services. (Library of Congress) been in the navy for 34 years: 11 years in service at sea, 20 years in assignments ashore, and 12 years awaiting orders in a navy with too many officers for available assignments. Following his state’s secession and the creation of the Confederate States of America, in February 1861 Semmes resigned his commission and traveled to Montgomery, Alabama, to enter Confederate service. President Jefferson Davis immediately sent him to the North to purchase military and naval supplies and manufacturing equipment. Commissioned a commander in the Confederate States Navy, Semmes met with Secretary of the Navy Stephen R. Mallory in mid-April. Both men favored commerce raiding as a means of hurting the North financially, weakening resolve, and forcing naval assets from blockade duties. Mallory gave Semmes command of the Sumter. The first Confederate commerce raider, this conversion was both small and slow, yet between June 1861 and

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January 1862 Semmes took 18 Union prizes in it. After six months, with the ship in poor repair and blockaded by Union warships, Semmes paid off the crew and abandoned the Sumter at Gibraltar. Mallory was pleased with Semmes’s success, and in August 1862 the Confederate Congress advanced him to captain. Mallory now gave Semmes command of a new ship contracted by the Confederates and nearing completion at Liverpool. Semmes joined the ship at Portuguese Terceira in the Azores. After supervising the mounting of its ordnance, in late August Semmes named it CSS Alabama. An excellent captain who paid attention to detail and was a stickler for order and cleanliness, Semmes was also lucky. An introvert who did not socialize with his officers and a staunch Catholic, he was both opinionated and wordy. Proud and entirely self-satisfied, Semmes never saw any wrong with his own cause and only evil and unfairness on the part of his adversaries. His memoirs reveal both great hatred of the North and contempt for the U.S. Navy. For nearly two years, Semmes and the Alabama ravaged Union shipping. Through July 1864, it took 66 prizes and sunk the Union warship Hatteras. In the Sumter and the Alabama Semmes captured 84 Union merchantmen. He estimated that he had burned $4.6 million worth of shipping and cargoes and bonded others valued at $562,250. Another estimate places the total at nearly $6 million. With his ship in need of repairs, Semmes finally put into Cherbourg, but French officials rejected his request that the Alabama be allowed into dry dock for repair. On June 19, 1864, Semmes ordered the Alabama to engage the Union screw steam sloop Kearsarge. Perhaps it was a matter of pride; the war was about over and there had been little glory in sinking merchantmen. In any case Semmes had little choice, for delay would only bring more Union warships. In the ensuing engagement, the Kearsarge sank the Alabama. Semmes escaped capture, taken to Southampton on an English yacht. Semmes then traveled to Belgium and Switzerland before returning to London. He finally made his way to Richmond via the West Indies, Cuba, and Mexico. Promoted to rear admiral in February 1865, he took command of the James River Squadron of three ironclad rams and seven wooden steamers. This command lasted barely three months. When Confederate forces abandoned Richmond, Semmes was forced to destroy his ships on the night of April 2, 1865. The men of the squadron then formed a naval brigade under Semmes as a brigadier general. At Greensboro, North Carolina, it joined General Joseph E. Johnston’s army, where it surrendered. Semmes was the first American to hold both army and navy flag rank. Paroled in May 1865, Semmes returned to Mobile, where that December he was arrested and transported to Washington, D.C., and held for three months. U.S. secretary of the navy Gideon Welles planned to try him before a military commission on charges that he had violated military codes by escaping from the Alabama after it had struck its colors. After the Supreme Court denied jurisdiction of the commissions, Semmes was released.

624 |â•‡ Sewell’s Point,Virginia, U.S. Navy Shelling of

Semmes was briefly a probate judge of Mobile County, professor at Louisiana State Seminary (now Louisiana State University) at Baton Rouge, and then editor of the Memphis Daily Bulletin. Following a profitable lecture tour, he then resumed the practice of law. In 1869, he published Memoirs of Service Afloat during the War between the States. Semmes died at his home in Point Clear, Alabama, on August 30, 1877. Spencer C. Tucker See also Alabama, CSS; Alabama vs. Hatteras; Alabama vs. Kearsarge; Blockade-Â� Runners; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Davis, Jefferson Finis; Gulf of Mexico; James River Squadron, CSA; Kearsarge, USS; Mallory, Stephen Russell; Mississippi Sound; Privateers; Richmond, Virginia; Strategy, Confederate Naval; Sumter, CSS; Welles, Gideon

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Register of Officers of the Confederate States Navy, 1861–1865: As Compiled and Revised by the Office of Naval Records and Library, United States Navy Department, 1931, from All Available Data. With a new introduction by John M. Carroll. Mattituck, NY: J. M. Carroll, 1981. [Originally published by the Naval Record and Library, U.S. Navy Department, in 1898 and revised in 1931.] Robinson, Charles M., III. Shark of the Confederacy: The Story of the CSS Alabama. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1995. Semmes, Raphael. Memoirs of Service Afloat: During the War between the States. 1869; reprint, Secaucus, NJ: Blue and Grey Press, 1987. Sinclair, Arthur. Two Years on the Alabama. Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1895. Taylor, John M. Confederate Raider: Raphael Semmes of the Alabama. Washington: Brassey’s, 1994. Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001. Tucker, Spencer C. Raphael Semmes and the Alabama. Abilene, TX: McWhiney Foundation Press, 1996.

Sewell’s Point, Virginia, U.S. Navy Shelling of Event Date: May 8, 1862 Union Navy engagement with Confederate shore batteries located at Sewell’s Point, Virginia, on May 8, 1862. Sewell’s Point is located on the southeastern shore of Hampton Roads. It is surrounded by water on three sides: Willoughby Bay lies to the north, Hampton Roads to the west, and the Lafayette River to the south. Sewell’s Point is presently the site of the Norfolk Navy Base. On May 5, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln departed Washington by steamer for Fort Monroe, Virginia, in an effort to get Major General George B. McClellan’s stalled Peninsula Campaign under way. Over a five-day span, Lincoln exercised

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his prerogative as commander in chief. He ordered Flag Officer Louis M. Goldsborough to send Union warships to shell Confederate batteries at Sewell’s Point in preparation for a possible land campaign to capture Norfolk. The Union ships assembled for the Sewell’s Point operation on May 8 included the ironclad Monitor; screw frigate Susquehanna; screw sloops Decotah, Naugatuck, and Seminole; and steamer Naugatuck. Also on May 8, some men deserted Norfolk in a tug and brought word that a Confederate evacuation was under way there and that the ironclad CSS Virginia would soon steam up the James with other ships of the Confederate James River Squadron. Goldsborough hoped that the shelling of Sewell’s Point would indeed lure out the Virginia. The Union plan was for the ships to withdraw, covered by the Monitor, drawing the Virginia into deep water where high-speed Union steamers might ram and sink it. Lincoln also sent a message to Goldsborough suggesting that if the flag officer had confidence that his other ships could contain the Virginia, he should send the Galena and two gunboats up the James to support McClellan’s forces on land. Goldsborough did so, and the Galena, accompanied by the Aroostook and Port Royal, silenced two Confederate shore batteries and forced the Confederate steamer gunboats Jamestown and Patrick Henry to withdraw farther up the James. The exchange of fire at Sewell’s Point revealed that Confederate strength there had been reduced but also confirmed that the position remained a strong one. Also, while the Virginia did sortie, it was never in such position to enable it to be rammed. On May 10, however, the Confederates abandoned Norfolk altogether, destroying what they could of the Norfolk (Gosport) Navy Yard. Union troops then crossed from Fort Monroe to Ocean View and took possession of what remained. Spencer C. Tucker See also Fort Monroe, Virginia; Galena, USS; Goldsborough, Louis Malesherbes; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Lincoln, Abraham; Monitor, USS; James River; James River Squadron, CSA; Norfolk Navy Yard; Susquehanna, USS; Virginia, CSS


Sharp, William Birth Date: March 16, 1826 Death Date: October 4, 1910 Confederate Navy officer. William Sharp was born in Norfolk, Virginia, on March 16, 1826. He joined the U.S. Navy as a midshipman on September 9, 1841. He

626 |â•‡ Shelby Iron Company

served in the frigate United States and sloop St. Mary’s before being detailed to the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis on January 1, 1847. He became a passed midshipman on August 10, 1847. On September 15, 1855, he was promoted to lieutenant and ordered to shore duty in Norfolk, Virginia. In 1858, he was assigned to the steam frigate Merrimack. On April 17, 1861, Sharp resigned his commission in the U.S. Navy and was commissioned a lieutenant in the Confederate Navy on June 10. On August 29, he was wounded and captured at the Battle of Fort Hatteras while serving as an aide to Commodore Samuel Barron. He was exchanged on November 2, 1861, and his subsequent service included time aboard the Confederate gunboats Beaufort and Patrick Henry. In December 1863, Sharp took command of the Confederate ironclad Neuse. He was promoted to captain and transferred to Charleston, South Carolina, on January 25, 1864, where he served as head of the Naval Ordnance Department. With the end of the war, he was paroled on April 30, 1865. Following the war, Sharp served as instructor of mathematics at the Norfolk Academy and as rector of the Boush Street Public School. He died in Norfolk, Virginia, on October 4, 1910. Andrew Duppstadt See also Barron, Samuel; Charleston, South Carolina; Hatteras Inlet, Union Assault on; Ironclads, Confederate; Naval Academy, United States; Neuse, CSS; Norfolk Navy Yard; Virginia, CSS

References Bright, Leslie S., William H. Rowland, and James C. Bardon. CSS Neuse: A Question of Iron and Time. Raleigh: North Carolina Division of Archives and History, 1981. Grant, Richard Southall. “Captain William Sharp of Norfolk, Virginia: USN-CSN.” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 57 (1949): 44–54. Register of Officers of the Confederate States Navy, 1861–1865: As Compiled and Revised by the Office of Naval Records and Library, United States Navy Department, 1931, from All Available Data. With a new introduction by John M. Carroll. Mattituck, NY: J. M. Carroll, 1981. [Originally published by the Naval Record and Library, U.S. Navy Department, in 1898 and revised in 1931.]

Shelby Iron Company One of only three Confederate foundries equipped with a rolling mill capable of producing two-inch iron plating during the war. The other two facilities were the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, Virginia, and Scofield & Markham Iron Works in Atlanta. Two-inch iron armor was the standard for Confederate ironclads, and therefore vital to the construction of a Southern navy. Between 1846 and 1848, Horace Ware had established a 30-foot furnace in Shelby County, six miles south of Columbiana, Alabama. In order to secure

Shelby Iron Companyâ•‡ | 627

capital, Ware obtained a charter from the state of Alabama and formed the Shelby County Iron Manufacturing Company in 1858. That same year construction began on a rolling mill, but he was unable to attract investors until the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. In 1862, six businessmen bought shares in the foundry, two of whom—Andrew T. Jones and John W. Lapsley—would play prominent roles in the wartime operations, especially labor and contracts. Confederate flag officer William F. Lynch approached Jones about producing iron plating for the navy. Jones agreed, even though this conflicted with his previous contract to deliver 12,000 tons of iron a year to the War Department. Despite this discrepancy, the foundry received a contract to manufacture 400 tons of twoinch iron plate by December 1, 1862, a deadline that was not fulfilled. A shortage of iron ore and labor and a poor transportation infrastructure made it difficult for any of the Confederate foundries to deliver their goods on time, and Shelby was no exception. His company failed to deliver 1,600 tons of plating to Yazoo City, Mississippi, and the ships under construction there ultimately had to be scuttled. The demand for finished iron products compelled the shareholders to greatly expand their facilities during the war. A new 38-foot-tall furnace, eight puddling mills, and five heating furnaces were added, along with a church, school, and homes for 300 workers. Labor was provided by a combination of white skilled workers and slaves. Approximately 60 whites were employed throughout the war years. Between 300 and 450 slaves toiled at the factory with the number never dropping below 300; 20 to 30 percent of them were owned by the company and the remainder were rented from local plantation owners. To ease transportation problems, a six-mile railroad stretching from Shelby to Columbiana was completed in 1865. On March 31, 1865, Union major general John H. Wilson’s cavalry raided the iron works, destroying the furnace and boilers. After the war, the board of directors struck a deal with investors from New York and Connecticut, and the plant became nationally known for producing railroad car wheel iron. It was taken over by the Alabama Coal and Iron Company, a New Jersey firm, in 1890 and shipped out its last iron products in 1923. William E. Whyte III See also Columbus Navy Yard; Iron and Steel Manufacture, Impact on Ship Construction; Ironclads, Confederate; Lynch, William Francis; Scofield and Markham Gate City Iron Works; Tredegar Iron Works; Yazoo River

References Knowles, Anne K. “Labor, Race, and Technology in the Confederate Iron Industry.” Technology and Culture 42(1) (January 2001): 1–26. McKenzie, Robert H. “Horace Ware: Alabama Iron Pioneer.” Alabama Review 26(3) (July 1973): 157–172. Still, William N., Jr. “Facilities for the Construction of War Vessels in the Confederacy.” Journal of Southern History 31(3) (August 1963): 285–304.

628 |â•‡ Shenandoah, CSS

Shell See Artillery Projectiles, Naval

Shenandoah, CSS Confederate Navy commerce raider. Purchased in England in September 1864 by Confederate agent James D. Bulloch, the Shenandoah was the last Confederate cruiser Bulloch managed to get to sea. The first composite auxiliary screw steamship in the world, the Shenandoah was originally the Sea King and was launched on August 17, 1863. Designed for transporting troops to India, its frames and beams were of iron and it was planked with East Indian teak. The Sea King was 1,378 tons burden and 228 feet between perpendiculars, 38 feet, nine inches in beam, and 15 feet in draft. Capable of nine knots under steam, the ship had one screw propeller, two boilers, and direct-acting engines. Flag Officer Samuel Barron, ranking Confederate officer in Europe, named Lieutenant Commander James I. Waddell the Sea King’s captain and ordered him to destroy the Union whaling fleet in the Pacific. On October 8, 1864, the Sea King departed the Thames estuary under a British merchant captain on what appeared to be a merchant voyage but then proceeded to Funchal on the Island of Madeira to rendezvous with the supply ship Laurel. That ship had sailed from England the same day with Waddell and the remainder of its crew and armament. The ship’s crew complement was 73 men. Armament consisted of four 8-inch and two 12-pounder smoothbore cannon, and two 32-pounder rifled guns. On October 19, 1864, Waddell officially commissioned his vessel the Confederate warship Shenandoah and began to cruise for Union vessels. The Shenandoah took six Union prizes in the Atlantic. It arrived at Melbourne, Australia, on January 25, 1865, and there underwent repairs. Save for the drydocking and machinery repairs at Melbourne, Waddell would not have been able to undertake his subsequent mission. The Shenandoah sailed again on February 18, 1865, and then cruised the whaling grounds in the Pacific Ocean and off Alaska. Its long stay at Melbourne allowed U.S. whaling vessels in the South Pacific to receive warning and disperse, but Waddell took his ship north and decimated the Union whaling fleet. For some time, Waddell refused to believe reports of the end of the war. Finally, after he had left northern waters, he accepted as proof a report from an English captain on August 2, 1865. Waddell then sailed the Shenandoah 17,000 miles, without stopping at any port, to Liverpool, England, where he arrived on November 6, 1865, and surrendered to British authorities. The trip had been made virtually under sail alone. Waddell resorted to steam only once, at night in the mid–South

Shenandoah, CSSâ•‡ | 629

The Confederate commerce raider Shenandoah undergoing repairs in Melbourne, Australia, during January-February 1865. Under able Commander James I. Waddell, the raider decimated the U.S. Arctic whaling fleet. For some time Waddell refused to believe the war was over. Not until August 1865 did he strike his guns below and sail to England. The Shenandoah was the only Confederate warship to circumnavigate the globe. (Naval History and Heritage Command)

Atlantic to elude the U.S. Navy side-wheel frigate Saranac. The Shenandoah was the only Confederate warship to sail around the world. In all the Shenandoah took 38 Union vessels of which Waddell burned 32. Damage to Union shipping was estimated at some $1.36 million. In 1866 the Shenandoah was sold to the sultan of Zanzibar. Renamed the El Majidi, it was damaged in a hurricane off Zanzibar in April 1872. That September, it sank in the Indian Ocean while on the Zanzibar-Bombay route. Spencer C. Tucker See also Barron, Samuel; Bulloch, James Dunwody; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Waddell, James Iredell

References Hearn, Chester G. Gray Raiders of the Sea: How Eight Confederate Warships Destroyed the Union’s High Seas Commerce. Camden, ME: International Marine Publishing, 1992.

630 |â•‡ Shipboard Life Horn, Stanley F. Gallant Rebel: The Fabulous Cruise of the C.S.S. Shenandoah. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1947. Morgan, Murray. Dixie Raider: The Saga of the C.S.S. Shenandoah. New York: Dutton, 1948. Waddell, James I. C.S.S. Shenandoah: The Memoirs of Lieutenant Commanding James I. Waddell. Edited by James D. Horan. New York: Crown, 1960.

Shipboard Life Although shipboard life varied according to vessel, depending in large part on the captain’s whim, most warships of the Civil War had regular daily and weekly routines. The typical day began at 4:00 a.m. with reveille sounded by the ship’s bugler. The men rolled and lashed their hammocks with rope, then carried them to the spar deck and placed them in the hammock rails atop the main bulwarks. Netting covered the hammocks, which could provide modest additional protection against wood splinters and small-arms fire in time of battle. The men then washed down and holystoned the decks. Other activities included washing clothes, polishing brass fixtures, and checking the ship’s rigging. The first of many inspections that would occur throughout the day followed. Perhaps two and a half hours into the day, the men had breakfast after which they spent much of the day in training, practicing going to quarters, and drilling in order to prepare for any eventuality, including fire on the ship. The men also trained with muskets, pistols, axes, pikes, and cutlasses both for boarding a hostile ship and for repelling boarders attempting to gain access to their ship. One of the most important shipboard activities was certainly regular practice with the big guns. This included going to quarters (battle stations) and running out and training the guns, as well as loading procedures. Occasionally the ship held live fire practice, perhaps shooting at barrels dropped overboard, with competition among the gun crews. The survival of the ship might well depend on the ability of the men to deliver rapid and accurate cannon fire, and each man had an assigned place and specific duty to perform. Drill had to be sufficiently frequent to ensure both close teamwork in the gun crew and optimum performance in the heat of battle. Other activities might include painting (something was always in need of paint on the ship), routine maintenance and repairs, and coaling. Aboard the steamships, coaling required the participation of most of the crew for a prolonged period. This was a dirty and physically demanding task. Some idea of the amount of coal required may be gleaned from the fact that to sustain a speed of six knots, a Cairoclass river ironclad consumed 2,000 pounds of coal per hour. On Sundays there was church service, usually conducted by the chaplain or ship’s commanding officer. Although attendance was not mandatory, it was encouraged.

Shipboard Lifeâ•‡ | 631

Such routine activities were usually not hazardous. Far more dangerous was working aloft in the rigging and on the masts and spars, when sailors might be 75 to 100 feet above the sea or the ship’s deck. It was not uncommon for sailors aloft to lose their footing and fall to the deck or into the sea, often with fatal result. Following dinner, the afternoon was taken up by additional work details, inspections, and drills, then a light supper and another inspection. The normal day on board ship ended at 8:00 p.m. with the playing of tattoo. Nighttime was not a period to relax vigilance, particularly for Union ships on blockade duty, as blockade-runners inevitably tried to use the hours of darkness to slip past the Union vessels. This routine might be broken by short periods of intense activity, such as the onslaught of bad weather or, if the ship was on blockade duty, chasing a blockaderunner. Only infrequently did crews experience the extreme hazards of fighting to save their ship in a storm or actual combat with an enemy ship or shore battery. In fact, many sailors never experienced combat during the war. The men spent any free time available to them washing, mending their clothing (regulations called for clothing to be inspected once a week), trying to sleep, writing letters home (or for a few, maintaining diaries), reading (newspapers were especially sought after), or playing cards or other games. Occasional variety shows provided a welcome diversion. U.S. Navy acting ensign John W. Grattan on the screw frigate USS Minnesota wrote that in evenings there was often “singing or music fore and aft.” Although living accommodations and conditions were much better for officers, all those aboard ship had to deal with a near total lack of privacy, as well as extremes of heat and cold, rain, and dampness within the ship. Dampness was especially a problem aboard the monitors, which had their crew accommodations below the waterline where the iron sides of the ship constantly sweated. A sickness rate of some 25 percent aboard the monitors in 1863 prompted an investigation by a committee of the U.S. Sanitary Commission. Ventilation improvements helped, and reportedly the sickness rate dropped to just 5 percent by 1865. If anything, conditions on Confederate ironclads were worse, but their crews at least had the advantage of usually being in port with berthing ashore. Despite efforts to keep the ships clean, they were invariably infested with vermin of all sorts, including rats, lice, fleas, and roaches. Coastal blockaders also had to contend with omnipresent flies and mosquitoes. One sailor on a ship off New Orleans described an “abominable climate” in which the men were “scorched through the day by the sun and at night” were “oppressed by a sullen atmosphere and annoyed almost to distraction by bugs of all descriptions, including mosquitoes.” The quality and quantity of food varied aboard ships, but in both the Union and Confederate Navies it appears to have been both plentiful and wholesome for the day, and it might be supplemented by packages from home or by the efforts of landing parties in hostile territory. Alcohol was a chief source of discipline problems

632 |â•‡ Ship Island, Mississippi

aboard ship, but many seamen were upset when the daily grog ration was abolished in the U.S. Navy on September 1, 1862. Fighting and gambling also caused problems on board ship. Thievery was rampant, and to help prevent it, the navy required the seamen to stencil their names into clothing. Nonetheless, Union Seaman Tim Finn noted, “You had to be on the lookout all the time or they would steal the Shirt off your Back,” while Union Seaman Chester B. DeWitt complained, “One cannot lay any thing down for a few minutes, but it is gone in the twinkling of an eye.” Nonetheless, sailors could be extraordinarily generous on occasion, as in supporting a shipmate fallen on hard times. Union Lieutenant Francis Roe observed, “I never knew of an instance of a sailor hesitating to put his name on a charity subscription, or to share his purse even with a vicious comrade.” White refugees as well as escaped slaves often were the beneficiaries of sailor kindnesses. Some sailors saw this as a form of atonement, one remarking, “Charity covers a multitude of sins.” Spencer C. Tucker See also Blockade-Runners; Brooklyn, USS; Cairo-Class River Ironclads; Discipline, Naval; Food and Drink aboard Ship; Lincoln, Abraham; Minnesota, USS; Ranks, Union and Confederate Navies; Seamen, Recruitment of; Welles, Gideon

References Bennett, Michael J. Union Jacks: Yankee Sailors in the Civil War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. Blanding, Stephan F. Recollections of a Sailor Boy on the Cruise of the Gunboat Louisiana. Providence, RI: E. A. Johnson, 1886. Grattan, John W. Under the Blue Pennant: Or Notes of a Naval Officer, 1863–1865. Edited by Robert J. Schneller Jr. New York: Wiley, 1999. Ringle, Dennis J. Life in Mr. Lincoln’s Navy. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998. Roberts, William H. Now for the Contest: Coastal & Oceanic Naval Operations in the Civil War. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004. Tucker, Spencer C. Andrew Foote: Civil War Admiral on Western Waters. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000.

Ship Island, Mississippi Ship Island is the collective name for East Ship Island and West Ship Island, two islands located in Mississippi Sound about 12 miles south of Biloxi, Mississippi, about 60 miles from New Orleans, and 40 from Mobile, Alabama. During the Civil War and until 1969 the two formed one island of fewer than 2 square miles, but that year Hurricane Camille split Ship Island into two. Ship Island was an important

Ship Island, Mississippiâ•‡ | 633

strategic location because it boasted the only protected deep-water harbor between Mobile Bay and the Mississippi River. Ample quantities of fresh water can easily be secured simply by sinking wells. The island was first charted by French explorer Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville in 1699 and then became a major entry point for French colonists to the New World. Secured by Britain at the end of the French and Indian War (Seven Years’ War in Europe) in 1763, it passed to Spain at the end of the Revolutionary War in 1783. The United States claimed the island in 1810 as part of the Louisiana Purchase. At the end of 1814, the British used the sound as a launching point for their unsuccessful campaign to secure New Orleans. In 1853 the island received its first lighthouse, and in 1858 the state of Mississippi passed legislation granting the federal government control of the island. In 1859 the U.S. government undertook construction of a fort on Ship Island, although work on it was halted by the Civil War. Given that the two principal Confederate gulf ports were New Orleans and Mobile, the U.S. Blockade Board recommended that Ship Island be turned into a major U.S. Navy base. It could then be utilized for possible operations against both ports, although its location made Ship Island ideal for operations against the entire eastern Gulf Coast as well as the resupply of U.S. blockading warships. Confederate forces initially occupied Ship Island and began to fortify it, but Union naval superiority rendered that unfeasible. On July 9, 1861, there was a brief 20-minute exchange of fire between the U.S. Navy screw steamer Massachusetts and the Confederate garrison on the island. Recognizing the inevitable, on September 16, 1861, the garrison set fire to its barracks, sabotaged the lighthouse, and abandoned the island. The next day, the U.S. Navy screw steamer Massachusetts arrived and off-loaded Union troops who took possession of the island. The island then became the staging area for Flag Officer David G. Farragut’s squadron and mortar flotilla for operations against New Orleans. On December 3, 2,000 men of the 26th Massachusetts and 9th Connecticut Volunteer regiments under Brigadier General John W. Phelps arrived at Ship Island. They were the first contingent of Union troops under Major General Benjamin Butler who were to operate in conjunction with Farragut’s naval forces in amphibious operations below New Orleans and then occupy the city itself. On October 22, 1863, Confederate guerrillas captured and burned the Union steamer Mist while it was taking on a cargo of cotton at Ship Island with the protection of a Union gunboat. From Ship Island, navy colliers and supply steamers regularly visited the Union blockaders on station, bringing food, including fresh vegetables in season, and mail. The island also served as a location to house Confederate prisoners of war. Both Ship islands suffered damage in Hurricane Katrina in 2005; West Ship Island was especially hard hit. Damage to Fort Massachusetts was soon repaired.

634 |â•‡ Shirk, James W.

Closed as a federal installation in 1903, the fort remains a tourist attraction open to the public. West Ship Island is part of the National Park Service and is a tourist destination accessible by boat or ferry. Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Blockade Board; Blockade of the Confederacy; Farragut, David Glasgow; Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s Run Past; Gulf of Mexico; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; Mississippi River; Mississippi Sound; Mobile, Alabama; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Canney, Donald L. Lincoln’s Navy: The Ships, Men and Organization, 1861–65. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 16. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1903.

Shirk, James W. Birth Date: July 16, 1832 Death Date: February 10, 1873 Union naval officer. James W. Shirk was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, on July 16, 1832, and was appointed a midshipman on March 26, 1849. He was advanced to passed midshipman on June 12, 1855. Prior to the Civil War, he served in the Africa, East Indies, Pacific, and Great Lakes squadrons. He was advanced to master on September 16, 1855, and to lieutenant on November 5, 1856. During the Civil War, Shirk commanded the timberclad gunboat Lexington in the February 6, 1862, Battle of Fort Henry, Tennessee, and then achieved distinction in supporting Union troops ashore in the Battle of Shiloh (Pittsburg Landing) on April 6–7, 1862. Shirk also participated in the White River Expedition in June 1862, the Chickasaw Bayou Expedition in December 1862, the taking of Fort Hindman (Arkansas Post) on January 10, 1863, and the naval attacks on the Vicksburg batteries in May and June 1863. He was promoted to lieutenant commander on July 16, 1862. Shirk commanded the ironclad Tuscumbia at Vicksburg and was given command of the 7th Division of the Mississippi Squadron following that campaign. Detailed to the Navy Department from 1866 through 1872, Shirk was promoted to commander on July 25, 1866. He died in Washington, D.C., on February 10, 1873. Gary D. Joiner See also Chickasaw Bluffs, Battle of; Fort Henry, Battle of; Fort Hindman, Battle of; Lexington, USS; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Pittsburg Landing; Riverine Warfare; Timberclads; Tyler, USS; Vicksburg Campaign; White River Expedition, U.S. Navy

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References Cunningham, Edward, Gary D. Joiner, and Timothy B. Smith, eds. Shiloh and the Western Campaign of 1862. New York: Savas Beatie, 2007. Joiner, Gary D. Mr. Lincoln’s Brown Water Navy: The Mississippi Squadron. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007. Shea, William L., and Terrence J. Winschel. Vicksburg Is the Key: The Struggle for the Mississippi River. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003.

Shot See Artillery Projectiles, Naval

Shubrick, William Branford Birth Date: October 31, 1790 Death Date: May 27, 1874 U.S. Navy officer. William Branford Shubrick was born at “Belvedere” on Bull’s Island, South Carolina, on October 31, 1790. Shubrick briefly studied at Harvard College before receiving a midshipman’s warrant on June 20, 1806. He served in the Mediterranean Squadron in the brig Wasp and then in the brig Argus in the Atlantic Squadron. Promoted to lieutenant on January 5, 1813, during the War of 1812 he served briefly in the brig Hornet and then in the frigate Constellation, when he took part in the successful repulse of a British boat attack on American positions on Craney Island, Virginia, on June 22, 1813. He then served in the Constitution during its capture of the British ships Cyane and Levant. Shubrick was promoted to master commandant on March 30, 1820, and to captain on February 21, 1831. He commanded first the sloop Lexington and then the sloop Natchez. During 1838–1840 he commanded the West India Squadron, and he was chief of the Bureau of Provisions and Clothing during 1844–1846. With the Mexican-American War already in progress, on August 22, 1846, Shubrick sailed in the razee frigate Independence (commanded by Captain Elie A. F. Lavallette) from Boston for California to relieve Commodore John D. Sloat as commander of the Pacific Squadron. Shubrick arrived at Monterey on January 22, 1847, and took command from Captain Robert F. Stockton, who had succeeded Sloat. Although Shubrick was one of the most senior officers in the navy, he was junior to Captain James Biddle. Thus, fewer than six weeks after he had taken command, in March 1847 Biddle, who was commanding the East India Squadron and had been ordered by Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft in May 1846 to assist in the conquest of California, took charge of their combined squadrons. Bancroft’s decision understandably did not sit well with Shubrick, who found himself relegated

636 |â•‡ Shubrick, William Branford

to the role of junior commodore, and led to his decision on June 1 to request early relief from new secretary of the navy John Y. Mason. However, Biddle’s orders gave him discretion to return home when, in his opinion, he was no longer needed in California, and he returned command to Shubrick on July 19 and departed six days later. Shubrick was now free to carry out the campaign he had outlined to Mason earlier, namely operations in the Gulf of California. Despite a shortage of both ships and supplies, he proceeded to carry out a highly successful campaign against the west coast of Mexico during which he secured or neutralized all of Baja, California, and the Mexican coast north of Acapulco. This included the captures of Guaymas, Mazatlán, and San Bias. With ratification of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Shubrick turned over command to Commodore Thomas ap Catesby Jones and departed Mexican waters on June 11, 1848, for a cruise to the South Seas. Clearly he had been the most effective of the commanders of the U.S. Pacific Squadron during the war. In 1849, Shubrick assumed command of the Philadelphia Navy Yard. He was chief of the Bureau of Construction, Equipment, and Repair during 1852–1853 and then took command of the special Eastern Squadron formed in late 1853 to protect U.S. fishing rights off Nova Scotia. Shubrick commanded the special Brazil Squadron during 1858–1859 and effectively supported U.S. diplomatic efforts to settle a dispute with Paraguay resulting from the firing on the paddle sloop Water Witch on February 1, 1858, when it was surveying the Paraguay River. In May 1859, he became chairman of the Lighthouse Board. At the beginning of 1861, Shubrick had been in the navy for 54 years: 18 years in sea service, 29 years in shore assignments, and 6 years awaiting orders in a navy that had too many officers for available assignments. With the secession of his native state from the Union in December 1860, Shubrick faced a most difficult decision. He came from a distinguished South Carolina family, yet three brothers and a nephew had died in U.S. Navy service. Shubrick was one of the navy’s most senior officers (of active duty officers he was the most senior of Southern officers and second in seniority of all officers only to Charles Stewart), and his decision could well influence more junior Southern-born officers. Shubrick remained loyal to the Union, however, as did seven of the nine captains and commanders from South Carolina. Placed on the retired list for reason of age on December 21, 1861, Shubrick nonetheless continued in active service as chairman of the Lighthouse Board throughout the duration of the war and indeed until October 1871. On July 16, 1862, Shubrick was promoted to rear admiral on the retired list, second only to Stewart. He died in Washington, D.C., on May 27, 1874. Spencer C. Tucker See also Lavallette, Elie Augustus Frederick; Philadelphia Navy Yard; Stewart, Charles

Side-wheelerâ•‡ | 637

References Bauer, K. Jack. Surfboats and Horse Marines: U.S. Naval Operations in the Mexican War, 1846–1848. Annapolis, MD: United States Naval Institute, 1969. Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Cooper, Susan F. Rear Admiral William Branford Shubrick. New York: Harper and Bros., 1876. Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001.

Side-wheeler Side-wheels propelled the world’s first steam-powered naval warships. The paddle wheels themselves were logically reverse engineered mill wheels, yet they proved fairly efficient and were well able to convert the momentum of simple direct-acting condensing steam engines into ship motion. Although American Robert Fulton’s North River was a commercial success in 1807, naval use of paddle wheels began with the Royal Navy’s Lightning in 1821. First regarded as tow boats for major warships, the naval side-wheelers were eventually armed. By the early to mid-1840s these ships became the fastest and, with the Royal Navy’s Terrible class, some of the most powerful warships in the world. Because of the paddle wheels, the traditional broadside armament of early steam warships gave way to fewer, more powerful pivot-mounted guns. Yet paddle warships were a short-lived phenomena. They suffered from variable immersion with shipload, corkscrewed through heavy seas as one wheel and then the other lifted free of the water, and were seen as vulnerable targets to gunfire. The biggest problem, however, was the inefficient and overly large steam machinery used in paddle steamers. In reality, the engines and boilers proved a much more vulnerable target than the paddle wheels and used tremendous amounts of fuel. Introduction of the screw propeller in the 1840s and 1850s spelled the end for most naval side-wheeler steamers. In all tests between screw-propelled and sidewheeler steamers, the screw-propelled vessels proved superior. By 1865, the U.S. Navy counted 113 screw steamers and 52 paddle wheel steamers specially constructed for naval purposes; 71 ironclads; 323 steamers, either purchased or captured, fitted for naval purposes; and 112 sailing vessels of all kinds. Yet because so many of the steamers that were purchased and converted for naval purposes were paddle wheel types, they constituted the majority of Civil War steam warships. Bradley Rodgers See also Screw Propeller; Steam Propulsion; Stern-wheeler

638 |â•‡ Signal Hill Fire Support Mission

References Brown, David K. Paddle Warships. London: Conway Maritime, 1993. Gardiner, Robert, ed. The Advent of Steam: The Merchant Steamship before 1900. London: Conway Maritime, 1993. Griffiths, Denis. Steam at Sea: Two Centuries of Steam-Powered Ships. London: Conway Maritime, 1997.

Signal Hill Fire Support Mission Event Date: August 17, 1864 Confederate Navy gunfire support mission in the James River. At 10:30 a.m. on August 17, 1864, Confederate Army general Robert E. Lee called on the navy to provide gunfire support to drive Union forces from Signal Hill, which they had just occupied. Lee had been able to reestablish his line defending Richmond with the exception of this one position. With James River Squadron commander Flag Officer John K. Mitchell then in Richmond, Lieutenant Thomas R. Rootes had command of the squadron. Rootes promptly took the ironclads Virginia II (commanded by Lieutenant Oscar F. Johnston) and the Richmond (Lieutenant John S. Maury) downriver. The ships anchored in the James above Signal Hill and soon took the Union position under fire. For some five hours they opened a sustained fire upon Signal Hill after which they continued desultory fire until about 9:00 p.m. Their highly effective fire drove the Union soldiers from the hill and allowed Lee to reestablish his lines. Spencer C. Tucker See also James River; James River Squadron, CSA; Mitchell, John Kirkwood; Richmond, CSS; Riverine Warfare

References Coski, John M. Capital Navy: The Men, Ships and Operations of the James River Squadron. Campbell, CA: Savas, 1996. U.S. Navy Department, Naval History Division. Civil War Naval Chronology, 1861– 1865. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971.

Simms, Charles Carroll Birth Date: March 30, 1824 Death Date: December 24, 1884 Confederate Navy officer. Charles Carroll Simms was born in Virginia on March 30, 1824. His father was the chief clerk of the Navy Department. Simms received a midshipman’s warrant on October 9, 1839, and advanced to passed midshipman on July 2, 1845. He was promoted to master on January 15, 1854, and to lieutenant

Slidell, Johnâ•‡ | 639

on August 12, 1854. Simms resigned his commission on April 22, 1861, following the secession of Virginia. He then joined the Virginia State Navy and in June was commissioned a lieutenant in the Confederate Navy. Simms was assigned command of the steamer CSS George Page before being assigned to the steamer CSS Rappahannock (formerly St. Nicholas). He then commanded the steamer gunboat CSS Appomattox in North Carolina waters and took part in the battles of Roanoke Island (February 7–8, 1862) and Elizabeth City (February 10). His ship proved too wide to escape north past the Dismal Swamp Canal lock, and Captain William F. Lynch ordered it and the lock blown up on February 10. Assigned the Confederate ironclad Virginia, Simms commanded its forward Brooke gun and took part in the Battle of Hampton Roads on March 8–9, 1862. Following the scuttling of the ironclad in May, Simms served on the gunboat CSS Nansemond in the James River Squadron and then on CSS Selma in Mobile Bay. At the end of the war, he commanded the Confederate ironclads CSS Baltic and Nashville. Surrendering to Union forces in early May 1865, he was paroled shortly thereafter. Simms died in Georgetown in Washington, D.C., on December 24, 1884. Spencer C. Tucker See also Baltic, CSS; Elizabeth City, Battle of; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Ironclads, Confederate; James River Squadron, CSA; Lynch, William Francis; Nashville, CSS, Ironclad; Rappahannock, CSS; Roanoke Island, North Carolina, Union Capture of; Virginia, CSS

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Quarstein, John V. C.S.S. Virginia: Mistress of Hampton Roads. Appomattox, VA: H. E. Howard, 2000. Register of Officers of the Confederate States Navy, 1861–1865: As Compiled and Revised by the Office of Naval Records and Library, United States Navy Department, 1931, from All Available Data. With a new introduction by John M. Carroll. Mattituck, NY: J. M. Carroll, 1981. [Originally published by the Naval Record and Library, U.S. Navy Department, in 1898 and revised in 1931.] U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 6. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1897.

Slidell, John Birth Date: 1793 Death Date: July 9, 1871 U.S. businessman, lawyer, politician, diplomat, Confederate commissioner to France (1861–1865), and a principal actor in the 1861–1862 Trent Affair. John Slidell was born in New York City in 1793. He graduated from Columbia College

640 |â•‡ Slidell, John

(later Columbia University) in 1810, studied law, and was admitted to the bar. He also became a prosperous businessman, before the War of 1812 virtually wiped out his holdings. In 1819, he moved to New Orleans, where he practiced law. He made several failed attempts to capture a seat in the U.S. Senate but was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served from 1843 to 1845. An expansionistminded Democrat and supporter of states’ rights, Slidell was a staunch supporter of James K. Polk, who became president in 1845. Toward the end of that year, Polk tapped Slidell as U.S. minister to Mexico. His task was to convince Mexico to sell New Mexico and California to the United States and to settle the dispute surrounding the Mexico-Texas border. After arriving in Mexico City in December 1845, Slidell was angered when the Mexican government refused to meet with him. This helped set the stage for the Mexican-American War of 1846–1848. In 1853, Slidell was finally elected to the U.S. Senate, where he remained until 1861. Slidell invariably cast his vote with the Southern bloc. Nevertheless, he remained a pro-Union moderate Democrat and backed John C. Breckinridge’s 1860 presidential bid. When Republican Abraham Lincoln won the election, however, Slidell realized that he had little choice but to side with the Confederate cause. He resigned his seat in February 1861 and soon accepted an appointment as Confederate commissioner to France. In late October 1861, Slidell and James M. Mason, who had been appointed commissioner to Great Britain, left the Confederacy, bound first for Cuba from which they would continue to Europe aboard a British mail steamer. On November 8, 1861, the British mail packet Trent, which had left Havana the day before, was stopped by the American warship USS San Jacinto. A U.S. boarding party then demanded that Mason and Slidell be remanded to U.S. custody, a violation of British neutrality. The two men were taken aboard the San Jacinto, which then sailed to Boston, where Mason and Slidell were detained at Fort Warren. The Trent Affair created serious problems for the Lincoln administration. London demanded that the United States release Mason and Slidell, under the threat of war. Anxious to avoid a war with Great Britain, Secretary of State William Seward worked closely with Benjamin Disraeli and Prince Albert to end the crisis, and Mason and Slidell were allowed to continue to Europe aboard a British warship in January 1862. Although he found considerable sympathy for the Southern cause in France, Slidell was unable to convince the French government to officially recognize the Confederacy. Unsure of the outcome of the Civil War, uneasy about damaging relations with and foregoing markets in the United States, and carefully watching London’s moves, the French were simply unwilling to take the step of recognition. Thus the military aid he sought, which would have included a Franco-Confederate alliance, eluded him. Be that as it may, numerous private French investors eagerly loaned the Confederate government money, a process in which Slidell played a central role.

Smalls, Robertâ•‡ | 641

When the war ended in 1865, Slidell remained in Europe, fearing retribution by U.S. authorities. He eventually made his way to England, where he died at Cowes, Isle of Wight, on July 9, 1871. Slidell never sought pardon from the U.S. government and never returned to the United States; he was buried in France. Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr. See also Adams, Charles Francis, Sr.; Bulloch, James Dunwody; Fort Warren, Massachusetts; Lincoln, Abraham; Mason, James Murray; Trent Affair; Wilkes, Charles

References Bulloch, James Dunwody. The Secret Service of the Confederate States in Europe, or How the Confederate Cruisers Were Equipped. New York: Modern Library, 2001. Diket, Albert L. Senator John Slidell and the Community He Represented in Washington, 1853–1861. Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1982. Mahin, Dean B. One War at a Time: The International Dimensions of the Civil War. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1999.

Smalls, Robert Birth Date: April 5, 1839 Death Date: February 22, 1915 An African American slave in the American South, whose act of defiance in the Civil War made him a national hero in the North. Born into slavery in Beaufort, South Carolina, on April 5, 1839, Robert Smalls at age 12 was hired out as a laborer in Charleston, South Carolina. There he worked a variety of jobs, including stevedore on the Charleston docks. The hire-out system allowed Smalls to arrange to pay an agreed-on amount each month to his owners; earnings over that he kept for himself. At age 17 he married Hannah Jones, a hotel maid, and made a contract with her owner to purchase her and their son. He also managed to join the Black Mutual Aid Society. With the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, the Confederate States of America commissioned the 313-ton steamer Planter as a dispatch boat and

Robert Smalls was a slave in South Carolina at the beginning of the Civil War. His act of sailing his dispatch boat out to the Union blockading squadron off Charleston made him a hero in the North. (Library of Congress)

642 |â•‡ Smith, Joseph

transport. Smalls worked on this armed (one 32-pounder and one 24-pounder howitzer) ship as a wheelman. Early on May 13, 1862, Smalls, his family, and a crew of slaves, 17 people in all, raised the ship’s anchor and escaped Charleston. Flying a white flag, Smalls delivered his ship and its cargo to the Union blockading squadron. Appointed a pilot in the U.S. Navy, Smalls became the captain of the Planter in 1863 and participated in the Union attack on Charleston of April 7, 1863. After the war, in July 1868, Smalls won election as a Republican to the South Carolina state legislature, which then had a black majority. In 1871 he won election to the state senate and in 1875 to the U.S. Congress, where he served until 1879 and again during 1881–1887. Smalls was a staunch advocate of civil rights and opposed the imposition of segregation laws. Smalls purchased his old owner’s estate and worked as a customs official the last two decades of his life. He died in Beaufort, South Carolina, on February 22, 1915. C. Alvin Hughes See also Blockade of the Confederacy; Charleston, South Carolina; Charleston, South Carolina, Du Pont’s Attack on; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron

References McPherson, James M. The Negro’s Civil War. New York: Vintage Books, 1965. Miller, Edward A. Gullah Statesman: Robert Smalls from Slavery to Congress, 1839– 1915. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1995.

Smith, Joseph Birth Date: March 30, 1790 Death Date: January 17, 1877 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Hanover, Massachusetts, on March 30, 1790, Joseph Smith received a midshipman’s warrant in the navy on July 16, 1809. He saw service in the War of 1812 and was promoted to lieutenant on July 24, 1813; to master commandant on March 20, 1820; and to captain on February 9, 1837. During 1844–1845 Smith commanded the Mediterranean Squadron. On May 25, 1846, he was appointed chief of the Bureau of Yards and Docks in Washington, D.C. Smith held this important administrative post for almost 23 years. Placed on the reserve list on September 13, 1855, he was restored to the active list in 1858. At the beginning of 1861 Smith had been in the navy for almost 52 years: 12 years of assignments afloat, 24 years in land billets, and 15 years awaiting orders in a navy with too many officers for available assignments. Although he was placed on the retired list on December 21, 1861, Smith remained on active duty as bureau chief. He is perhaps best remembered for having also chaired the important Ironclad Board. This three-man board included himself, Captain Hiram Paulding, and Commander Charles H. Davis. The board, which was

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created on the news that the Confederates had raised the scuttled U.S. Navy steam frigate Merrimack and were rebuilding it as an ironclad, decided on the construction of three Union ironclads: the Galena, New Ironsides, and Monitor. On March 8, 1862, Smith’s son, Lieutenant Joseph B. Smith, was killed in the Battle of Hampton Roads while acting as temporary commander of the frigate Congress when it was engaged and destroyed by CSS Virginia. The elder Smith was promoted to rear admiral on the retired list on July 16, 1862, and remained at his post in the Navy Department until April 30, 1869. He served on the Retirement Board during 1870–1871. Smith died in Washington, D.C., on January 17, 1877. Spencer C. Tucker See also Davis, Charles Henry; Galena, USS; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Ironclad Board, U.S. Navy; Ironclads, Union; Monitor, USS; New Ironsides, USS; Paulding, Hiram; Smith, Joseph Bryant; Virginia, CSS


Smith, Joseph Bryant Birth Date: 1826 Death Date: March 8, 1862 U.S. Navy officer. Joseph Bryant Smith was born in Belfast, Maine, in 1826. Appointed a midshipman on October 19, 1841, he graduated from the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, and was promoted to passed midshipman on August 10, 1847. He then served aboard the side-wheel frigate Mississippi, with the U.S. Coast Survey, and at the Washington Navy Yard. He was promoted to master on August 22, 1855, and to lieutenant on September 14, 1855, when he was assigned to the screw steam frigate Merrimack. He served in that ship until 1857. In 1859 Smith was assigned to the sailing frigate Congress as the ship’s executive officer. On March 8, 1862, Smith was in command of the Congress when it came under fire from the Confederate ironclad Virginia (ex-Merrimack) during the Battle of Hampton Roads. Smith ordered the armed tug Zouave to tow his ship under the Union shore batteries at Newport News. This action prevented the Virginia, with its deep draft, from ramming the Congress as it had the sloop Cumberland. Unfortunately for Smith, the Congress grounded, and thus at about 3:30 p.m. Confederate commodore Franklin Buchanan was able to position the Virginia about 150 yards off the stern of the frigate and open a deadly raking fire. Only 2 of the frigate’s

644 |â•‡ Smith, William

50 guns could be brought to bear in reply. In short order 100 men, a quarter of the Union ship’s crew, were casualties. Soon both of the Congress’s stern guns were disabled, and Lieutenant Smith was killed, decapitated by a shell fragment at about 4:20 p.m. Still, the Union frigate took nearly an hour of punishment before it struck. On learning in Washington that the ship had surrendered, Smith’s father, Commodore Joseph Smith, said simply, “Joe’s dead.” Lieutenant John Taylor Wood of the Virginia wrote, “No ship was ever fought more gallantly.” Having received fire from Union troops on the shore, Buchanan took out his anger on the surrendered Congress and ordered the Virginia’s gunners to set the ship alight with hot shot; the Congress blew up that night. In all, 120 men of the crew perished. Gerald D. Holland Jr. and Spencer C. Tucker See also Buchanan, Franklin; Coast Survey, U.S.; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Mississippi, USS; Naval Academy, United States; Newport News, Virginia; Smith, Joseph; Virginia, CSS; Washington Navy Yard; Wood, John Taylor

References Porter, David Dixon. The Naval History of the Civil War. 1886; reprint, New York: Dover, 1998. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 7. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1898. Wood, John Taylor. “The First Fight of Iron-Clads.” In Battles and Leaders of the Civil War: Being for the Most Part Contributions by Union and Confederate Officers, 4 vols., edited by Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence Clough Buel, 1:692–711. 1883; reprint, Secaucus, NJ: Castle, n.d.

Smith, William Birth Date: January 9, 1803 Death Date: April 19, 1873 U.S. Navy officer. Born on January 9, 1803, in Washington, Kentucky, William Smith received a midshipman’s warrant in the navy on March 4, 1823. He was promoted to passed midshipman on March 23, 1829; to lieutenant on March 31, 1831; and to commander on September 12, 1854. At the beginning of 1861 Smith had been in the navy for 37 years: 18 years in service at sea, 5 years in assignments ashore, and 14 years awaiting orders. At the start of the Civil War he had command of a receiving ship at the Boston (Charlestown) Navy Yard. In the autumn of 1861 Smith took command of the sailing frigate Congress in the Atlantic Blockading Squadron at Hampton Roads. With news that the Confederate

Smith, Williamâ•‡ | 645

ironclad Virginia was nearing completion, Smith expressed concern that none of his ship’s guns were rifled types. He pointed out that a Confederate ship armed with rifled guns could stand off at long range and engage the frigate, and he would be unable to do anything in return. Smith was also worried about a shortage of crew members, and 89 men of the 99th New York Infantry Regiment were brought on board to help beef up the Congress’s strength. Although he had been reassigned, he was still aboard the ship when it came under attack by the Confederate ironclad Virginia on March 8, 1862. Lieutenant Joseph B. Smith was the acting commander and was killed in the battle. William Smith and Lieutenant Austin Pendergast, who assumed command of the frigate on the death of Joseph Smith, surrendered the ship as the only alternative to complete annihilation of the remaining defenders. On April 30, 1862, William Smith assumed command of the screw sloop Wachusett in the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron and was the senior officer of the Union ships in the James River. During April 6–7 Smith had command of the Wachuset, the screw gunboat Chocura, and the side-wheel gunboat Sebago that escorted Union transports up the York River to land troops at West Point, Virginia, and then successfully engaged Confederate shore batteries there. On May 4 boats from his ship raised the U.S. flag at Gloucester Point, Virginia, across the York River from Yorktown. On May 27, however, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles relieved Smith of his command for permitting the ship’s doctor and other personnel to go ashore to attend to several ill women in an area supposedly free of Confederate control. This led to the deaths of three men and capture of nine others. Transferred to the command of the steam sloop Seminole, by the summer of 1862 Smith was awaiting orders. Promoted to commodore on July 16, 1862, that November Smith was assigned command of the Pensacola Navy Yard in Florida. He held that command until he went on leave of absence in late 1864. He was placed on the reserve list in January 1865 with no further naval service. Smith died in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 19, 1873. Spencer C. Tucker See also Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Boston Navy Yard; Hampton Roads, Battle of; James River; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Pensacola Navy Yard; Receiving Ship; Riverine Warfare; Smith, Joseph Bryant; Virginia, CSS; Welles, Gideon

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Davis, William C. Duel between the First Ironclads. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975. Navy Historical Division, Navy Department. Civil War Naval Chronology, 1861–1865. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971. Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001.

646 |â•‡ South Atlantic Blockading Squadron

South Atlantic Blockading Squadron President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a naval blockade of the Confederacy on April 19, 1861. The Blockade Board (Strategy Board) having recommended that the blockade be split into separate squadrons, the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron was established from the Atlantic Blockading Squadron (formerly the Coast Blockading Squadron) on October 29, 1861. It covered the area from Cape Fear, North Carolina, to Cape Canaveral, Florida. Captain Samuel F. Du Pont, chair of the board, assumed command of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron on October 29, 1861, and commanded the successful Union expedition against Port Royal, South Carolina, on November 7. In addition to securing bases for the coaling, supplies, and repair of his ships, Du Pont sought to expand the blockade along more of the Confederate coastline and to make it more effective as additional warships became available through conversion and construction. By the end of 1862 most of the Confederate coast was covered, although blockade-runners were still able to get in and out. Du Pont also undertook several offensive measures. On December 3, 1861, Union hulks and older ships loaded with rocks were sunk to block access to Savannah; two weeks later, similar operations were carried out off Charleston, South Carolina. These ships were referred to as the Stone Fleet. This effort had little lasting effect, however. The South Atlantic Blockading Squadron had more success in several amphibious operations. Union forces captured Fernandina Island, Florida, on March 4, 1862, and Fort Pulaski, on Tybee Island near Savannah, Georgia, on April 10. Despite these offensive successes, blockade-runners managed to slip through the Union blockade, although they had decreasing success as the war wore on. The largest haul for the Confederates came when the merchant steamer Fingal evaded capture and arrived in Savannah, Georgia, on November 12, 1861, with a substantial quantity of war materiel. The Confederates subsequently converted it into the ironclad Atlanta. Rear Admiral Du Pont, meanwhile, was preparing to move against Charleston. He demanded monitors as necessary in any such operation, and U.S. secretary of the navy Gideon Welles and assistant secretary of the navy Gustavus V. Fox, long strong proponents of such an operation, complied. On January 31, 1863, the Confederates struck first when Captain Duncan Ingraham led the ironclads Palmetto State and Chicora in an attack on the wooden Union blockading warships off Charleston Harbor. The Confederate ironclads temporarily captured the Mercedita and crippled the Keystone State. Ingraham and Confederate commander in Charleston General Pierre G. T. Beauregard inaccurately proclaimed that the Union blockade had been broken under international law, but the U.S. Navy held that its sloop Housatonic had driven off the attackers. Du Pont then sent the powerful ironclad New Ironsides to Charleston, ensuring

South Atlantic Blockading Squadronâ•‡ | 647

that an ironclad remained there for the duration of the war. On June 17, 1863, the Atlanta sortied from Savannah and engaged the U.S. Navy monitors Nahant and Weehawken, but it grounded and was captured by them. Following repeated urging by Welles and Fox and trials of the monitors against Fort McAllister, Georgia, Rear Admiral Du Pont launched his long-anticipated attack on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor on April 7, 1863. He had seven Passaic-class monitors, the New Ironsides, and the double-ended monitor Keokuk. The ships in the squadron received worse than they gave. The Keokuk subsequently succumbed to damage sustained in the exchange of fire, and most of the other ships involved suffered varying amounts of damage. Du Pont’s own oft-stated doubts about operations against Charleston that were not joint army-navy enterprises led to his relief on June 4, 1863, by Rear Admiral Andrew H. Foote. Foote took ill and died in New York City before he could take up his command, however, and Secretary Welles reluctantly appointed Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren, President Lincoln’s choice, in his stead. The Confederates made several efforts to break the blockade at Charleston. On the evening of October 5, 1863, CSS David, armed with a spar torpedo, attacked and slightly damaged the New Ironsides. The Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley had more success. On February 17, 1864, it employed a spar torpedo to sink the Housatonic but itself succumbed in the attack with the loss of its entire crew. Dahlgren, meanwhile, was well aware of the risks involved and was reluctant to undertake any operation against Charleston that might endanger his reputation. He saw his primary mission as cooperation with the army, and with approximately the same number of ironclads available to Du Pont, he performed effectively, making possible the army’s seizure of Morris Island. He continued to reject calls for an operation in Charleston Harbor by his ships alone, however. Learning that Fort Sumter appeared to be partly evacuated, Dahlgren ordered a boat attack against it from Morris Island on the night of September 8–9, 1863. Alerted to the attack by means of a captured Union signal key, the Confederates were waiting and defeated the assault, inflicting heavy Union casualties before covering Union warships could get in position. This failure ended Union offensive operations in Charleston Harbor. Surprisingly, Dahlgren did not mount any serious efforts to examine obstructions or determine the channel by which blockade-runners were still able to access Charleston. Such an effort, however, would have resulted in pressure on him to force his way into the harbor. During the advance of Union ground forces under Major General William T. Sherman from Savannah into South Carolina in 1865, the squadron assisted in operations on the Wando River (January 12, 1865). Charleston, the “Font of the Rebellion,” did not fall to the Union until February 1865. Dahlgren turned over the squadron to Rear Admiral William Radford on June 17, 1865, and on July 25,

648 |â•‡ Spar Torpedo

1865, the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron merged back with the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron to form the Atlantic Squadron. Scholars, especially Robert Browning, have concluded that the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron’s fixation on Charleston was detrimental to the overall blockading effort and Union military effort in the war. In this regard, failures in Union leadership prevented an earlier end to the war. Charles James Wexler, William E. Whyte III, and Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Atlanta, CSS; Blockade Board; Blockade of the Confederacy; Blockade-Runners; Charleston, South Carolina; Charleston, South Carolina, CSA Navy Attack on U.S. Navy Blockaders; Charleston, South Carolina, Du Pont’s Attack on; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Dahlgren, John Adolph Bernard; Davids, CSS; Du Pont, Samuel Francis; Fingal, CSS; Foote, Andrew Hull; Fort McAllister, Georgia, Union Attacks on; Fort Sumter, Union Attacks on; Fox, Gustavus Vasa; Hatteras Inlet, Union Assault on; H. L. Hunley, CSS; Housatonic, USS; Hulk; Ingraham, Duncan Nathaniel; Ironclads, Confederate; Ironclads, Union; Keokuk, USS; Lincoln, Abraham; Morris Island, South Carolina, Union Operations against; Navy, U.S.; New Ironsides, USS; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Passaic-Class Monitors; Pendergast, Garrett Jesse; Port Royal Sound, Battle of; Radford, William; Spar Torpedo; Stone Fleets; Submarines; Torpedoes; Welles, Gideon

References Browning, Robert M., Jr. Success Is All That Was Expected: The South Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War. Dulles, VA: Brassey’s, 2002. Durham, Roger S. Guardian of Savannah: Fort McAllister, Georgia in the Civil War and Beyond. Columbia: University of South Carolina, 2008. Hunter, Alvah Folsom. A Year on a Monitor and the Destruction of Fort Sumter. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1987. Wise, Stephen R. Gate of Hell: Campaign for Charleston Harbor, 1863. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1994. Wise, Stephen R. Lifeline of the Confederacy: Blockade Running during the Civil War. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988.

Spar Torpedo An explosive device or mine placed at the end of a long pole or spar. During the Civil War mines were known as torpedoes for the electric ray fish that shocked its prey. The Confederacy employed large numbers of torpedoes in rivers and off its ports against Union warships. It also utilized the torpedoes offensively. Confederate general Pierre G. T. Beauregard, commanding at Charleston, advocated construction of small vessels mounting a spar torpedo in the bow to attack the blockading Union warships. Such craft were designed to operate very low in the water. Encouraged by Beauregard, Confederate Army captain Francis D. Lee carried out

Spar Torpedoâ•‡ | 649

a number of experiments and supervised construction of a torpedo boat, the Torch. Some 150 feet in length, it was launched in July 1863. The Confederates regarded the ironclad New Ironsides as the principal threat of the Union blockaders. Shortly after midnight on August 21, 1863, a crew of 12 men sortied in the Torch, now armed with an unusual triple spar torpedo, with each warhead weighing 100 pounds. The New Ironsides was then at anchor, swinging with the tide, and this movement and the Torch’s poor engine prevented it from striking the Union ship broadsides. The Confederates also built much smaller vessels (48.5 feet long), known for the prototype as Davids. A half dozen others of this design were laid down, but only a few were actually completed. Operating low in the water, the Davids resembled a submarine but were in fact strictly surface vessels propelled by a steam engine. The Davids took in water as ballast to run on the surface awash, but the open hatch, necessary to provide air for the steam engine, invited disaster through swamping. With a crew of four, the Davids mounted a spar torpedo containing 60 pounds of powder. On the night of October 5, 1863, commanded by Lieutenant William T. Glassell, the David set out. It got to within 50 yards of the New Ironsides before it was discovered. The crew of the David managed to place their mine, which exploded. Although damaged, the Ironsides was soon repaired and back in service. Although the David escaped, Glassell and another member of the crew were captured. The Confederates carried out other such attempts against Union ships at Charleston but without success. Union precautions included posting picket boats, using antitorpedo netting, and keeping at the ready boat howitzers loaded with canister. The Union side also employed spar torpedoes. On October 18, 1864, Lieutenant William B. Cushing and 14 volunteers used a spar torpedo mounted at the bow of a small steam launch to sink the Confederate ironclad ram Albemarle at Plymouth, North Carolina. Spencer C. Tucker See also Albemarle, CSS; Albemarle, CSS, Destruction of; Cushing, William Barker; Davids, CSS; Glassell, William T.; H. L. Hunley, CSS; New Ironsides, USS; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Strategy, Confederate Naval; Submarines; Torpedoes

References Bradford, R. B. History of Torpedo Warfare. Newport, RI: U.S. Torpedo Station, 1882. Hartman, Gregory K. with Scott C. Truver. Weapons That Wait: Mine Warfare in the U.S. Navy. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1991. Lundeberg, Philip K. Samuel Colt’s Submarine Battery: The Secret and the Enigma. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1974. Perry, Milton F. Infernal Machines: The Story of Confederate Submarine and Mine Warfare. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1965. Roland, Alex. Underwater Warfare in the Age of Sail. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978.

650 |â•‡ Squadron

Squadron A division of a fleet forming a body under the command of a flag officer. In the British Navy the term “squadron” dates from 1588, when the sailing fleet was at one time divided into three squadrons: the red, the blue, and the white. Each of these in turn was divided into sections: van, middle, and rear. The term also describes a detachment of warships on special duty. The word comes from the Italian squadrone, meaning a small number of warships that could be commanded by a single flag officer. With the advent of modern navies, the term “squadron” came to mean a small number of warships, usually of the same type, and of cruisers or larger ships. Smaller warship groups were called flotillas, although modern usage has dropped the term “flotilla,” with “squadron” becoming the applicable term for a group of warships of the same type regardless of size. The North Atlantic Blockading Squadron and the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron are examples of Civil War squadrons, although they were certainly not composed of the same type of ships. Walter Jaffee See also Flotilla; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron

References Kemp, Peter, ed. Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea. London: Oxford University Press, 1976. King, Dean. A Sea of Words. New York: Henry Holt, 1997.

Squib, CSS One of 12 torpedo boats ordered by the Confederate Navy Department to be built in 1864, including 4 at Richmond, Virginia (the Squib, Hornet, Scorpion, and Wasp); two at Columbus, Georgia; and one in the Peedee River, South Carolina. The Squib (also known as the Infanta) was subsequently described by Acting Master John A. Curtis, its second in command, as being about 35 feet in length with a beam of 5 feet and a draft of 3 feet. To avoid detection while under way, it had a low 2-foot freeboard. The Squib mounted a spar (5 inches in diameter and 14 feet long) at the bow with a percussion-fired torpedo (mine) charged with 53 pounds of powder at its end. Operating in the James River, on the night of April 9, 1864, Confederate Navy lieutenant Hunter Davidson set out with a crew of six men and maneuvered the Squib through the Union blockading warships off Newport News, Virginia, to attack the the screw frigate Minnesota, the Union flagship. The attack occurred at 2:00 a.m.

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A lookout on the Minnesota hailed the boat when it was about 150 yards off the flagship’s port beam. The Squib made no noise, and so the lookout could not tell what it was or how it was powered. Davidson identified his vessel as the “Roanoke.” The lookout ordered him to stay clear, but the torpedo boat continued its rapid approach. The Minnesota then attempted to open fire on the Squib, but the torpedo boat was then so close that the flagship’s guns could not be sufficiently depressed to be able to bear. The spar torpedo rammed into the flagship on its port quarter near the anchor chains, and there was a tremendous explosion as the charge went off. The torpedo exploded too close to the surface to do great damage to the Minnesota, however. The Squib was itself actually in more danger, for as the Minnesota reeled from the blast, the torpedo boat was sucked in toward the Union ship. When the Minnesota settled back again, the water pushed the Squib free. Under a hail of small-arms fire from the flagship, the Squib escaped up the James. For his daring act, Davidson was promoted to the rank of commander. Coming as it did shortly after the Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley had sunk the U.S. steam sloop Housatonic off Charleston, there was great concern over other such possible Confederate attacks, and security was tightened for Union squadrons riding at anchor. Picket boats were kept out at night, rowing around the anchored ships, and a tug was to be ready with steam up. On April 13–14 North Atlantic Blockading Squadron commander Acting Rear Admiral Samuel P. Lee sent the converted ferryboats USS Stepping Stone, Commodore Barney, Commodore Morris, Commodore Perry, and Shokokon, along with two launches from the Minnesota, up the Nansemond River in cooperation with U.S. Army troops to operate ashore in an effort to capture Confederate troops in the area as well as to destroy the Squib. Although some Confederate soldiers were taken prisoner, the attackers also learned that the Squib had been removed from Smithfield to Richmond. Its ultimate disposition is unknown. Spencer C. Tucker See also Davids, CSS; Davidson, Hunter; H. L. Hunley, CSS; Housatonic, USS; James River; Lee, Samuel Phillips; Minnesota, USS; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Richmond, Virginia; Spar Torpedo

References Coski, John M. Capital Navy: The Men, Ships and Operations of the James River Squadron. Campbell, CA: Savas, 1996. Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 8. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1899. U.S. Navy Department, Naval History Division. Civil War Naval Chronology, 1861– 1865. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971.

652 |â•‡ Star of the West, USS

Star of the West, USS A two-deck 1,172-ton side-wheel schooner-rigged U.S. merchant ship commissioned in 1852. Originally the San Juan, it was built by Jeremiah Simonson at Greenpoint, New York. Cornelius Vanderbilt used the ship to sail the coasts of the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico between New York and Nicaragua before selling the ship in 1856 to Marshall O. Roberts of New York. Roberts chartered the Star of the West to the U.S. government during the Civil War. When South Carolina seceded from the Union on December 20, 1860, President James Buchanan proposed to use the heavily armed screw sloop Brooklyn to take supplies and reinforcements to Fort Sumter, located in Charleston Harbor. However, Major General Winfield Scott advised the president that the Brooklyn’s appearance would be interpreted by Confederate officials as a threat and convinced him to send a merchant ship instead. The Star of the West was thus chartered to transport rations and soldiers to Fort Sumter. In the early hours of January 9, 1861, the Star of the West was within sight of Sumter and steaming slowly toward the fort when it was fired upon by cannon manned by cadets of the Citadel, South Carolina’s military academy. Captain John McGowan then decided to return to New York City. Three months later the Star of the West was again chartered by the federal government to repatriate Union prisoners of war held near Indianola, Texas, but on April 17, 1861, the ship was captured by the Confederate steamer General Rusk. Renamed CSS Saint Philip, it was employed by the Confederates as both a hospital ship and a receiving ship at New Orleans. With the impending capture of New Orleans by Union forces, the Saint Philip was moved upriver with Confederate specie, which it delivered to Vicksburg, Mississippi. The ship was then moved to the Yazoo River. The Confederates purposely sank the Saint Philip in the Tallahatchie River on March 13, 1863, in order to block approaching ships of Union rear admiral David Porter’s Mississippi Squadron. Robert A. Lynn See also Brooklyn, USS; Charleston, South Carolina; Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, Relief Efforts and Beginning of the Civil War; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; Porter, David Dixon; Receiving Ship; Yazoo River

References Donald, David Herbert. Lincoln. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995. Garrison, Webb. Lincoln’s Little War: How His Carefully Crafted Plans Went Astray. Nashville: Rutledge Hill, 1997. U.S. Navy Department, Naval History Division. Civil War Naval Chronology, 1861– 1865. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971.

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St. Charles, Battle of See White River Expedition, U.S. Navy

Steam Propulsion Steam power applied to ship propulsion brought about revolutionary changes in naval strategy, tactics, and organization. Steam engines augmented and later replaced the masts, sails, and rigging used by mariners for centuries to harness the power of the wind. Once reliable and efficient steam propulsion systems were developed, faster and larger ships were constructed for both commercial and military purposes and were capable of carrying unprecedented cargo payloads and armaments. Steam propulsion first proved its value on inland waterways, where winds were unreliable and human effort often had to be harnessed to move boats against strong currents. The earliest vessels fitted with steam-powered propulsion systems were constructed in the 1780s. Frenchman Marquis Claude de Jouffroy d’Abbans is credited with building the first steam-powered boat. Launched in 1783, his Pyroscaphe could operate for only a few minutes as it struggled to overcome the current of the Saône River, near Lyons, where it was tested. Improvements to the design of steam engines by Thomas Newcomen, James Watt, Oliver Evans, and Richard Trevithick were quickly applied to naval propulsion, and in 1790 John Fitch built a steam launch that could attain a speed of eight miles per hour and reliably navigate the Delaware River between Philadelphia and Burlington, New Jersey. In 1807 Robert Fulton constructed the Clermont, a 150-foot-long paddle wheel ship that is widely acknowledged as the first practical and economical vessel powered by steam. The first transatlantic crossing by a ship equipped with a steam engine occurred in 1819 when the 350-ton Savannah, fitted with a side-mounted paddle wheel, traveled from Georgia to St. Petersburg, Russia, in 50 days using both steam and sails. As increasing numbers of steam vessels were built, side- and rear-mounted paddle wheel ships (“paddlers”) proved themselves to be slow, inefficient, and subject to breakdowns that were difficult to repair on the open ocean. Sailing ships thus continued their dominance until the mid-19th century. Compound engines, first introduced in 1854, ran multiple pistons connected to a single crankshaft and, when used aboard ship, greatly increased the mechanical power output of a steam propulsion system. Coupled with advances in metallurgy applied to the design of boilers that increased the maximum safe operating pressure of the superheated water that drove the pistons to generate power, compound engines extended the cruising range and increased the maximum speed of steamships to match the performance of sailing vessels. Other engine improvements

654 |â•‡ Steam Propulsion

soon followed. These included condensers, which lengthened the working life of steam engines by reducing mineral deposits from the seawater supply that fed the boilers; double expansion engines, which conserved water and fuel during engine operation; and triple- and quadruple-expansion engines, which further improved the efficiency and power output of shipboard steam propulsion systems. Despite early successes with steam propulsion, considerable time elapsed before the steam engine found favor with conservative naval authorities responsible for warship design and construction; early steam warships were consigned to harbor defense and coastal patrol duties on account of unreliable engines, small size, and minimal armament. The U.S. Navy was the first in the world with a steam-powered warship. Robert Fulton’s Demologus (later the Fulton) of 1815 was a catamaran with a central paddle wheel located between thick twin hulls to protect it from enemy fire. It was essentially a floating battery that mounted powerful guns behind thick bulwarks. Specifically intended to defend New York Harbor, under steam power it could move about at 5.5 knots. In 1837, with other navies experimenting with steam, the U.S. Navy launched a second steam warship, the Fulton II. Because early steam engines were so inefficient and could carry relatively little fuel, steam warships retained sail rigs, a practice continued well past the Civil War, indeed to the end of the 19th century. In 1842 the U.S. Navy took a temporary lead over other navies with its side-wheelers USS Mississippi and Missouri. While the Missouri succumbed to fire in 1843, the Mississippi had an exceptional service record, proving the value of steam propulsion in warships during the Mexican-American War and serving as the flagship of Perry’s squadron in the opening of Japan. The Mississippi remained in service well into the Civil War and was destroyed in March 1863 by Confederate shore batteries at Port Hudson, Louisiana. The screw propeller, credited both to Francis Petit Smith of England and John Ericsson of Sweden, helped overcome many of the objections to steam propulsion for warships. More efficient than the paddle wheel because the entire propeller remained under water, it was also protected from enemy fire. The U.S. Navy steam sloop Princeton of 1843 was the world’s first propeller-driven warship. It incorporated a number of other firsts, including being the first warship with its machinery below the waterline (where it would be protected from enemy shot). Ericsson designed its power plant and propeller. The Princeton also incorporated the change to an armament of fewer and more powerful guns capable of firing both spherical shot and explosive shell. In tests between paddle wheel–driven and propeller-driven ships, the latter proved superior. Despite the shortcomings of early steam propulsion, even traditionalists among the naval officers came to appreciate the ability of steam as an auxiliary power source for maneuvering in conditions of contrary wind or no wind at all. The new warfare waged under steam power brought new demands and new hazards. The fire room on a typical large Civil War steam warship had four vertical boilers, each of which held four furnaces. To achieve a speed of five knots without

Steele’s Bayou Expeditionâ•‡ | 655

sails, the four boilers would consume as much as 3,400 pounds of anthracite coal per hour. To sustain a speed of six knots, a Cairo-class river ironclad consumed 2,000 pounds of coal per hour. Regardless of training, there was no way to prepare for a boiler explosion or ruptured steam tubes. During the Battle of Plum Point Bend on the Mississippi River on May 10, 1862, Union rifled shells smashed into the boilers of three Confederate steamers, disabling them and releasing clouds of steam that killed more than 100 Confederate sailors. Despite problems, the number of steam warships continued to grow. In March 1861 the U.S. Navy numbered only 90 ships, 42 of which were actually in commission. Twenty-three of these were steamers; the other 19 relied entirely on the wind for their propulsion. By the end of the war the U.S. Navy had 671 vessels of all types: 113 screw steamers and 52 paddle wheel steamers especially constructed for naval purposes; 71 ironclads; 323 steamers, either purchased and captured, and fitted for naval purposes; and 112 sailing vessels of all kinds. The vast majority of ships in the Union fleet, 559 ships, were steam-powered vessels. By the 1890s, highly efficient steam engines were being installed on a new generation of large warships fitted with steel armor and long-range rifled guns arranged in turrets, which were turned with steam shunted from the engine boiler. These new ships were faster, more maneuverable, and more powerful than their wood and iron predecessors. Improvements continued, including the steam turbine engine and the marine diesel engine. Shannon A. Brown and Spencer C. Tucker See also Cairo-Class River Ironclads; Ericsson, John; Floating Battery; Iron and Steel Manufacture, Impact on Ship Construction; Mississippi, USS; Mississippi River; Plum Point Bend, Battle of; Screw Propeller; Side-wheeler; Stern-wheeler

References Bennett, Frank M. The Steam Navy of the United States: A History of the Growth of the Steam Vessel of War in the U.S. Navy, and of the Naval Engineer Corps. 1896; reprint, Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1970. Gardiner, Robert, ed. Steam, Steel, and Shellfire: The Steam Warship, 1815–1905. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1992. Rowland, K. T. Steam at Sea: A History of Steam Navigation. New York: Praeger, 1970.

Steele’s Bayou Expedition Start Date: March 14, 1863 End Date: March 27, 1863 Ill-fated U.S. Navy attempt to approach the city of Vicksburg, Mississippi, from the northeast. While a U.S. Navy force on the Yazoo River was encountering problems and Rear Admiral David G. Farragut was attempting to get ships of his

656 |â•‡ Steele’s Bayou Expedition

West Gulf Blockading Squadron past Port Hudson, Rear Admiral David D. Porter, commander of the Mississippi River Squadron, launched his Steele’s Bayou Expedition. Porter hoped thereby to get in behind Confederate Fort Pemberton and secure control of the Yazoo Bluffs. He planned to take a flotilla from the Mississippi up the Yazoo River and then avoid Confederate artillery by turning north into Steele’s Bayou and next into Black Bayou and Deer Creek before turning south again into Rolling Fork and Big Sunflower Creek into the Yazoo again between the bluffs and Yazoo City. The entrance to Steele’s Bayou was located a bit more than six miles up the Yazoo from its mouth. Porter believed that Black Bayou beyond it and Deer Creek to the north were all connected, could be navigated by his ships at high water, and could connect with the Big Sunflower River and the Yazoo. Porter would then have the option of going upriver to cut Fort Pemberton’s supply line to the south or downriver to strike behind the Confederate batteries at Haynes’ Bluff and Durumgould’s Bluff (located, respectively, 10 and 12 miles northeast of the mouth of Steele’s Bayou). He also anticipated that Union troops could then be landed behind these Confederate positions and access Vicksburg, only 7 miles to the southwest from the Steele’s Bayou entrance. After personally scouting the Yazoo and part of Steele’s Bayou with a local guide on March 12, Porter set out on March 14. The force consisted of the ironclads USS Carondelet, Cincinnati, Louisville, Mound City, and Pittsburg; four mortar schooners, each mounting one 13-inch sea mortar; and four tugs. The journey proved to be difficult going. The water was shallow much of the way and was obstructed by fallen trees and undergrowth. The expedition proceeded more or less as planned until it reached Black Bayou, where progress was blocked by a dense forest of trees that had to be pushed aside or dragged from the water. Nonetheless, in 24 hours the expedition had advanced four miles to Deer Creek. Major General William T. Sherman and 10,000 Union troops of the Union XV Corps in transports followed. When the expedition reached Deer Creek, it had only 12 miles to go to reach Rolling Fork. General Sherman joined Porter there with some of his men. In Deer Creek, however, operations were slowed to only a half mile an hour. The waterway was narrower than anticipated and was clogged with small willows through which movement was difficult. All manner of wildlife dropped from branches above as the ships brushed by and had to be swept off the decks of the ships by crewmen with brooms. There also they were discovered by the Confederates, and the seamen were forced to employ boat howitzers loaded with grape and canister shot to chase away Confederate sharpshooters. At the same time the Confederates put the torch to large amounts of cotton, also burning some buildings in the process. As the flotilla was within seven miles of the Rolling Fork, the Confederates employed slaves to cut down trees in the Union path. The sailors then labored to clear these newest obstructions. With his ships closing to within three miles of

Steele’s Bayou Expeditionâ•‡ | 657

Rolling Fork and access to the Sunflower River, Porter was informed that a Confederate transport had arrived and delivered both troops and light artillery to the levee. Porter estimated the size of this Confederate force at 4,000 men, and the Union transports with Sherman’s men were then some distance off. The Union crews could hear the sound of axes as slaves felled trees behind the squadron in an effort to trap the ships in place. Porter then sent word to Sherman via a local slave requesting that Sherman come up immediately, and Sherman responded. As the Union troops struggled to reach Porter, the admiral attempted to deal with the Confederates ahead of him. Unable to elevate his ships’ guns sufficiently to engage the Confederate artillery on the top of the levee, Porter blasted away at the troops on the shore. With Porter contemplating scuttling his ships, troops of the U.S. 2nd Division arrived by land on the afternoon of March 21. More troops and Sherman himself came up by steamboat the next day, and these again clashed with the Confederates, driving them back and allowing the Union ships to descend the river to safety. Porter’s ships again reached Black Bayou on March 24. There was more skirmishing that day and the next with three Confederate regiments. The Union ships returned to base on March 27. The March 14–27 expedition had covered 140 miles—70 each way—but, as with its predecessors, ended in failure. It had dealt a considerable blow, much of it self-inflicted, to Confederate agricultural production. At least it had not been costly in terms of casualties. Confederate losses are unknown, but Porter suffered one dead and four men wounded by sniper fire, while Sherman lost two men killed. On their return, Porter and Sherman met with Major General Ulysses S. Grant aboard his headquarters steamer at Milliken’s Bend to consider their next course of action. With winter past, additional land options were possible including an earlier plan now rendered feasible by the receding waters. It involved marching Union troops down the Louisiana side of the river south of Vicksburg to New Carthage. Porter’s ships would run past Vicksburg in order to ferry Grant’s men across the river to Grand Gulf in Mississippi, allowing him to approach Vicksburg from the south. The plan was risky, but Grant was determined to try it. Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Cairo-Class River Ironclads; Carondelet, USS; Cincinnati, USS; Farragut, David Glasgow; Flotilla; Louisville, USS; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Mortar Boats; Mound City, USS; Pittsburg, USS; Porter, David Dixon; Riverine Warfare; Vicksburg, Mississippi, Mississippi Squadron Passage of; Vicksburg Campaign; West Gulf Blockading Squadron; Yazoo Pass Expedition; Yazoo River

References Ballard, Michael B. Vicksburg: The Campaign That Opened the Mississippi. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. Porter, David Dixon. The Naval History of the Civil War. 1886; reprint, New York: Dover, 1998.

658 |â•‡ Stembel, Roger Nelson Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 24. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1911.

Stembel, Roger Nelson Birth Date: December 17, 1810 Death Date: November 20, 1900 U.S. Navy officer. Roger Nelson Stembel was born in Middletown, Maryland, on December 17, 1810. He received a midshipman’s warrant on March 27, 1832, and was promoted to passed midshipman on June 23, 1838. Stembel saw extensive service afloat in the West India, Mediterranean, Home, Brazil, China, and East India squadrons and was promoted to lieutenant on October 26, 1843. At the start of the Civil War, Stembel was assigned to the Western Gunboat Flotilla. There he helped oversee the conversion of three merchant steamers into the so-called timberclads and took command of one of them, the Lexington. Promoted to commander on July 1, 1861, he saw action at Lucas’ Bend (September 10, 1861), in the Battle of Belmont (November 7, 1861) and the Battle of Fort Henry (February 6, 1862), and in the capture of Island Number 10 (March–April 1862). After commanding the ironclad Cincinnati in the bombardment of Fort Pillow beginning in April, Stembel’s ship took part in the Battle of Plum Point Bend (May 10, 1862). His ship having been rammed and in sinking condition, Stembel was on deck directing operations to try to save his ship when he was hit and badly wounded by a Confederate sharpshooter. Invalided as a consequence of his wound in 1863, Stembel served ashore at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, during 1864 and 1865. Promoted to captain on July 25, 1866, he commanded the screw sloop Canandaigua in the European Squadron (1865–1867). He was advanced to commodore on July 13, 1870, and was then stationed ashore at Boston. Stembel retired on December 27, 1872. He was promoted to rear admiral on the retired list on June 5, 1874. Stembel died in New York City on November 20, 1900. Spencer C. Tucker See also Belmont, Battle of; Cincinnati, USS; Fort Henry, Battle of; Fort Pillow, Tennessee; Island Number 10, Battle of; Lexington, USS; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Plum Point Bend, Battle of; Riverine Warfare; Timberclads


Stern-wheelerâ•‡ | 659

Tucker, Spencer C. Andrew Foote: Civil War Admiral on Western Waters. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Stern-wheeler A steam-powered vessel driven by a stern-mounted paddle wheel and developed primarily for inland waterway systems. Until eclipsed by the railroad, the sternwheeler, along with the side-wheeler, represented a near revolution in inland transportation. Inland river systems have numerous hazards for navigation, including shallow depth, swift currents and rapids, sandbars, underwater snags, seasonal changes in water depth, rocks, and twisting channels. The stern-wheeled riverboat, with a shallow draft, flat bottom, and narrow beam and driven by a highpressure steam engine, made river shipping and travel not only regular but also relatively swift. Stern-wheelers had several key advantages over side-wheeled vessels: they drew much less water, had less beam for superior maneuverability on smaller waterways, and were quicker and cheaper to build. Although often associated with the trans-Appalachian American West and rivers such as the Mississippi, Ohio, Missouri, and Columbia, stern-wheelers were reliable vessels for both freight and passenger service throughout much of the world. In the United States the 1850s were the Golden Age of the stern-wheelers in terms of speed, quality, and grandeur. As warships during the American Civil War, stern-wheelers and side-wheelers both played a key role in the Union successes of the western campaigns. Besides serving as gunboats, the river fleets served as troop transports and munitions carriers. They ferried wounded and prisoners of war in addition to carrying food and forage for the field armies. Andrew Wilson See also Riverine Warfare; Screw Propeller; Side-wheeler; Steam Propulsion

References Bauer, K. Jack. A Maritime History of the United States: The Role of America’s Seas and Waterways. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988. Brown, David K. Paddle Warships. London: Conway Maritime, 1993. Hilton, George Woodman, R. Plummer, and J. Jobs. The Illustrated History of Paddle Steamers. New York: Two Continents Publishing Group, 1976. Hunter, Louis C. Steamers on the Western Rivers: An Economic and Technological History. New York: Dover, 1993.

660 |â•‡ Stevens Battery

Stevens Battery Uncompleted ironclad. The United States had an opportunity to lead the world in ironclad warships when Robert L. Stevens of Hoboken, New Jersey, proposed attaching iron plates to a wooden ship to protect it from enemy fire. Stevens and his brother experimented with laminated iron plate 4.5 inches thick and discovered that it could, at 30 yards, withstand shot from a 64-pounder gun. Stevens also experimented with elongated shell. In April 1842 Congress made the world’s first appropriation for a seagoing ironclad ship, authorizing a contract with Stevens for a revolutionary war steamer that would have preceded the French Gloire by 15 years. Stevens wanted his steamer to be shot- and shell-proof, faster than any other ship afloat, and capable of firing shot and elongated shell that would explode after penetration. But the Stevens Battery, as the project was known, never was completed. John Ericsson arrived in the United States with a heavy wrought-iron 12-inch gun, and its projectiles could smash through 4.5 inches of wrought iron. This forced the Stevens brothers to increase the thickness of their armor to 6.75 inches. The ship had to be enlarged to take the extra weight, one reason why it was never finished. The Stevens Battery was a considerable undertaking. In its final iteration it was 420 feet in length and 53 feet in beam with a draft of 20.5 feet. It weighed 4,683 tons. Ultimately, more than $700,000 was expended on the project. During the Civil War there was talk of finishing the battery, but the cost was estimated at $812,000, and in the 1870s the battery was broken up on the stocks and sold for scrap. Spencer C. Tucker See also Ericsson, John; Iron and Steel Manufacture, Impact on Ship Construction; Ironclads, Union

Reference Tucker, Spencer C. “The Stevens Battery.” American Neptune 51(1) (Winter 1991): 12–21.

Stewart, Charles Birth Date: July 28, 1778 Death Date: November 6, 1869 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on July 28, 1778, Charles Stewart joined the U.S. merchant marine at age 12 and rose to become a master. He was appointed a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy on March 9, 1798. During the QuasiWar with France (1798–1800), Stewart sailed to the West Indies as a member of the crew of the frigate United States. In July 1800 he took command of the sloop

Stewart, Charlesâ•‡ | 661

Experiment in which he captured two French privateers and rescued a number of American merchant ships. Retained in the peacetime navy after the Quasi-War, Stewart briefly commanded the frigate Chesapeake in 1801 and then served in the frigate Constellation in 1802. He distinguished himself in several tours in the Mediterranean during the Barbary Wars, and commanding the brig Syren in the Mediterranean from 1803, on February 16, 1804, he provided support to his close friend Lieutenant Stephen Decatur during the latter’s destruction of the captured frigate Philadelphia in Tripoli Harbor. Stewart subsequently took part in the several battles with Tripolitan gunboats. Stewart was promoted to master commandant on May 19, 1804, and Charles Stewart joined the U.S. Navy as a to captain on April 22, 1806. He spent lieutenant in 1798. At the start of the Civil War he had been in the navy for 62 years several years supervising gunboat conand commanded the Philadelphia Navy Yard. struction and had extended furloughs Consulted by President Abraham Lincoln, with the merchant marine prior to the Stewart supported the plan to relieve Fort War of 1812. Sumter by water. (Library of Congress) On active duty with the navy again just prior to the start of the War of 1812, that June Stewart took a number of prizes in the brig Argus. Assuming command of the frigate Constellation at Norfolk, he was unable to escape the British blockade and transferred to the frigate Constitution at Boston where, in December 1813, he escaped the harbor and took several prizes before being chased back into port. In December 1814 Stewart again escaped from Boston. While cruising off Madeira on February 20, 1815, the Constitution encountered and defeated the British frigate Cyane and sloop Levant. For his actions, Congress subsequently voted Stewart a gold medal. Stewart commanded the Mediterranean Squadron during 1818–1821, the Pacific Squadron during 1821–1824, and the Home Squadron during 1842–1843. During 1830–1833 he served on the Board of Naval Commissioners, and he commanded the Philadelphia Navy Yard during 1838–1841, in 1846, and again in 1854–1860. Although placed on the retired list on September 14, 1855, Stewart retained his command of the navy yard until he requested relief in December 1860. Some months before, on March 2, 1859, Congress passed legislation granting Stewart the

662 |â•‡ Stone Fleets

position of senior flag officer, created in recognition of his years of distinguished service. On December 31, 1860, Stewart was replaced in command of the Philadelphia Navy Yard by Captain Samuel F. Du Pont, who had made his first cruise under Stewart as a 13-year-old midshipman in 1817. At the beginning of 1861 Stewart’s naval career spanned 62 years: 24 years at sea, 20 years in shore duty, and 18 years awaiting orders in a navy with too many officers for available assignments. After Abraham Lincoln assumed the presidency, he sought Stewart’s advice as to the possibility of supplying Fort Sumter by water. Stewart supported the plan put forward by Gustavus V. Fox, later assistant secretary of the navy. Stewart played no more role in the war. He was placed on the retired list on December 21, 1861, and then on July 16, 1862, became the first member of the retired list to be promoted to rear admiral. Stewart died at Bordentown, New Jersey, on November 6, 1869. Spencer C. Tucker See also Du Pont, Samuel Francis; Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, Relief Efforts and Beginning of the Civil War; Fox, Gustavus Vasa; Lincoln, Abraham; Philadelphia Navy Yard

References Berube, Claude, and John Rodgaard. Captain Charles Stewart of the USS Constitution. Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2005. Martin, Tyrone. A Most Fortunate Ship: A Narrative of Old Ironsides. Rev. ed. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997. McKee, Christopher. A Gentlemanly and Honorable Profession: The Creation of the U.S. Naval Officer Corps, 1794–1815. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1991.

St. Louis, USS See Baron de Kalb, USS

Stone Fleets In October and November 1861 the U.S. Navy Department purchased a number of hulks, many of them former whaling vessels, with the intention of loading them with stone and sinking them as block ships in the channels off Charleston and Savannah. The plan called for 25 to be placed off Savannah and 20 off Charleston. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles also promised the commander of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, Commodore Samuel F. Du Pont, any additional hulks required for similar operations elsewhere. The assembly of the large number of ships in Savannah in what became known as the Stone Fleet may have led Confederate leaders to assume that a major Union amphibious operation was imminent. In any case, it helped bring the Confederate

Stonewall, CSSâ•‡ | 663

decision to abandon their fort on Wassaw Island, which dominated one means of access (the other being Tybee Roads) to the Savannah River. The Stone Fleet was not a success, however. Seventeen of the hulks ultimately made it off Savannah on December 4, although a number were in sinking state, and four of these went down before they could be properly placed. Others were indeed scuttled off Tybee Island. On December 20 Captain Charles H. Davis supervised the placement of 16 other Stone Fleet ships in the main ship channel on the bar at Charleston. While this action did block that channel for a time, blockade-runners could still access the port through North Channel and Maffitts Channel, and the operation had little long-range advantage for the Union blockaders. Indeed, the operation was something that Welles preferred to forget. General Robert E. Lee, then commanding the Southern Military Department of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, called the Stone Fleet an “abortive expression of the malice and revenge of a people,” but he also correctly concluded that the Stone Fleet revealed that the North was not then considering an attack on Charleston and that the Confederates should therefore prepare for attacks elsewhere along the coast. Spencer C. Tucker See also Blockade of the Confederacy; Blockade-Runners; Davis, Charles Henry; Du Pont, Samuel Francis; Hulk; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Welles, Gideon

References Browning, Robert M., Jr. Success Is All That Was Expected: The South Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War. Dulles, VA: Brassey’s, 2002. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department, Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 12. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1901.

Stonewall, CSS One of a class of two ironclad rams built at Bordeaux, France, by Lucien Arman for the Confederate government. Only the Stonewall reached Southern hands. Contracted for by Confederate agent James D. Bulloch and laid down in 1863 under the cover name of Sphinx (as it was supposedly intended for the Egyptian government), the Stonewall was launched in June 1864. Two months earlier, with the tide of war decidedly favoring the North, Paris decided that the ship would not be sold to the Confederacy and arranged for its sale to Denmark instead. Renamed the Staerkodder, it was intended for service in Denmark’s 1864 war with Prussia and Austria. When the ship failed to reach Denmark before that country lost the war, Copenhagen refused the ship. The French builders were able to arrange its transfer

664 |â•‡ Stonewall, CSS

The French-built ironclad ram CSS Stonewall lying at anchor off Washington, D.C. in summer 1865. The Stonewall was built in France for the Confederacy but was transferred to the South too late to take an active role in the war. (Library of Congress)

to the Confederacy, and the ship was commissioned at sea in January 1865 as the Stonewall, although it was officially known as the Olinde to allay suspicion. The Stonewall displaced 1,390 tons and measured 186’9’’ in length overall (157’6’’ between perpendiculars), with a maximum beam of 32’6’’ and a draft of 14’3’’. It was propelled by two direct-acting engines on two screws and was capable of 10.8 knots. Crew size was 135 men. Fitted with a pronounced submerged ram bow, the Stonewall mounted three rifled guns: one 11-inch 300-pounder in the bow to fire directly ahead and two 5-inch 70-pounders carried aft in a turret. The ship was protected by a 3.5–4.75-inch armor belt backed by 16 inches of wood, with 4.5-inch armor on the casemate and turrets. Officers for the ram came from the late Confederate cruiser Florida, headed by Captain Thomas J. Page. The Stonewall underwent some repairs at Ferrol, Spain, and then steamed to Lisbon to take on coal. From Lisbon it sailed on March 28, easily outdistancing the pursuing U.S. warships Niagara and Sacramento under the command of Captain Thomas T. Craven, who believed that his adversary was too powerful and had earlier refused battle. Page hoped to attack Port Royal, South Carolina, but contrary winds led him to steam to Nassau and then to Havana. In the latter port Page learned that the war was over. He then turned the ship over to Cuban authorities in return for money to pay off his crew. Handed over to the United States in July 1865, the Stonewall sailed to the Norfolk Navy Yard, where it was sold to the shogun of Japan. Seized by forces loyal to

Stono River Expeditionâ•‡ | 665

the emperor when it arrived at Yokohama in April 1868 and renamed the Koketsu, it led the assault on the shogun’s stronghold at Hakodate in July 1869. Renamed the Azuma in 1881, it was stricken from the active list in 1888 and broken up in 1908. The second Stonewall-class ship, built under the name Cheops, was also launched in June 1864. Sold by the builder to Prussia, it entered that nation’s service as the Prinze Adalbert in October 1865. Rearmed and completed in 1866, it was broken up in 1878. Spencer C. Tucker See also Bulloch, James Dunwody; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Craven, Thomas Tingey; Florida, CSS; Ironclads, Confederate; Norfolk Navy Yard

References Bulloch, James Dunwody. The Secret Service of the Confederate States in Europe, or How the Confederate Cruisers Were Equipped. New York: Modern Library, 2001. Navy Historical Division, Navy Department. Civil War Naval Chronology, 1861–1865. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971. Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989.

Stono River Expedition Start Date: July 2, 1864 End Date: July 9, 1864 U.S. Navy expedition up the Stono River in South Carolina that took place during July 2–9, 1864. The Stono River is a tidal inlet that runs inland southwest of Charleston. In mid-June 1864 U.S. Navy South Atlantic Blockading Squadron commander Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren suggested to the new commander of the U.S. Army Department of the South Major General John G. Foster that 5,000 troops supported by ships of his squadron be sent into the inlet above Sullivan’s Island off Charleston, South Carolina, with the plan of getting in behind the Confederate defenders there and forcing them to withdraw. In conjunction with this effort, Dahlgren proposed a diversionary attack up the Stono River to draw off Confederate forces. Foster considered it too risky and withheld his support. The two men continued their conversations, and on June 27 they decided on a demonstration to consist of an attack up the North Edisto or Ashepoo River to cut the important Confederate rail line joining Charleston to Savannah, Georgia. Dahlgren was particularly interested in this operation because he had learned that the Confederates were planning an attack by their ironclads Chicora and Palmetto State and other warships against the Union blockaders off Charleston to mask a large shipment of cotton in blockade-runners from Darien, Georgia. The two men decided that they would cut the railroad first and then proceed against the cotton shipment.

666 |â•‡ Stono River Expedition

The Union plan called for a movement up both the North Edisto and Stono rivers on the night of July 1–2. Brigadier General Alexander Schimmelfenning and 1,000 men would move up the Stono and land at Legareville, while 2,000 men would disembark on Cole’s Island to advance on Secessionville. Brigadier General John P. Hatch and 4,000 men would land on Seabrook’s Island and then advance inland, while another force under Brigadier General William Birney would move up the North Edisto River as far as possible and then land to destroy the railroad. To support Union troops on the Stono, Dahlgren initially provided the monitors Lehigh and Montauk, the screw sloop Pawnee, the steamer Commodore McDonough, and the mortar schooners Para and Racer. The screw steamer Dai Ching and Wamsutta and the side-wheeler gunboat Geranium would support the North Edisto River operation. Both Union ironclads crossed the Stono River bar on the afternoon of July 2. Schimmelfennings’s men meanwhile had taken possession of Cole’s Island. Dahlgren then moved up the Stono, his flag in the Montauk. The narrowness of the river channel impeded the ironclads’ movements, and they anchored below Grimball’s Plantation for the night. Meanwhile, Birney disembarked his troops on the evening of July 2 and bivouacked near the Dwaho River. The next day they drove some three miles inland but encountered a Confederate earthworks, which Birney was reluctant to assault because the ships in the Dawho River were unable to provide effective gunfire support. After having sustained only six men wounded, Birney withdrew and reÂ�embarked his men to join operations on the Stono on July 4. Operations on the Stono had meanwhile resumed on the morning of July 3, with the Union ships providing highly effective gunfire support. The Montauk fired to clear the area in front of Schimmelfenning’s positions, while the Lehigh, the screw sloop Pawnee, and the Commodore McDonough, joined by the mortar schooners Para and Racer, fired on Confederate Battery Pringle. Five boats carrying 141 officers and men of Schimmelfenning’s force landed and captured Battery Simkins at Laxaretto Creek but, unsupported, were forced to surrender. Hatch meanwhile landed his men but never advanced much beyond the covering fire of the naval guns. On July 5 Dahlgren went ashore and accompanied Foster and Hatch that afternoon along the southern bank of the Stono in an effort to ascertain the strength of the Confederate works. An engineer with their party judged the defenses too strong. Dahlgren’s ships meanwhile continued to shell the Confederates ashore during July 6 and 7. On July 8 Foster and Hatch met with Dahlgren aboard his flagship steamer USS Philadelphia and informed him that the Confederate positions were too strong to be carried and that they were withdrawing their men. In his diary Dahlgren expressed his “disgust” at what he considered an inadequate army effort to advance and test the enemy works. On the night of July 9 the troops reembarked on their transports, and by 2:00 a.m. on July 10 all Union troops had departed John’s Island. The Union warships covered the withdrawal and continued to shell Confederate Fort Pringle. The

Strategy, Confederate Navalâ•‡ | 667

Union ships remained in the Stono until July 1l to rescue any Union stragglers. Two Union seamen were wounded in the operation. Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Blockade-Runners; Dahlgren, John Adolph Bernard; Montauk, USS; Mortar Boats; Pawnee, USS; Riverine Warfare; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron

References Browning, Robert M., Jr. Success Is All That Was Expected: The South Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War. Dulles, VA: Brassey’s, 2002. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 15. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1902. U.S. Navy Department, Naval History Division. Civil War Naval Chronology, 1861– 1865. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971.

Strategy, Confederate Naval Confederate naval strategy was influenced by political considerations, geography, industrial capability, and demography. The Confederacy found itself at a distinct disadvantage in relation to the North in virtually all these areas, and disparities only increased as the war progressed. The North possessed the vast majority of the population, railroads, and heavy manufacturing. The lack of heavy manufacturing capabilities affected the South acutely, especially in the production of steam engines, ironclad warships, and heavy guns. Southern politicians and the general public also deeply distrusted centralized government, preferring to give more power to the states. Confederate policy was affected by this core belief, and naval strategy was suffused with it. The South enjoyed one great advantage, however. To win the war, the North would have to invade and physically conquer the South, whereas for the South to win the Confederacy did not need to conquer the North. The South needed only to remain on the defensive and hold the Union armies at bay, hoping that the North would tire of the conflict and let the South go. This did not seem to be an unreasonable expectation in 1861. In February 1861 Stephen R. Mallory assumed the post of secretary of the navy of the Confederate States of America. Probably President Jefferson Davis’s best appointment, Mallory had served in the U.S. Senate and had been on and then chaired its Naval Affairs Committee. With Davis preoccupied with the army, Mallory more than any other individual set Confederate naval strategy. Davis did take the lead, however, in one important strategic decision at the beginning of the war that was to have unfortunate consequences for the Southern war effort. He supported an embargo on cotton. The South was the world’s largest

668 |â•‡ Strategy, Confederate Naval

producer of raw cotton, and most of this was exported to Western Europe. Davis believed that withholding it from market would bring tremendous economic pressure on Britain and France and force them to recognize the Confederacy. This so-called Cotton Diplomacy was a failure, and by the time the policy had been reversed, valuable time had been lost and the Northern blockade had become much more effective. The South should have immediately shipped all available cotton overseas in order to secure much-needed foreign exchange to purchase military equipment in Britain and elsewhere. Also, early in the war these supplies would have had a much better chance of making it through the Union naval blockade, which grew increasingly stronger over time. The tasks facing the South in the naval sphere were daunting. The Confederacy did secure one windfall in the form of the Norfolk (Gosport) Navy Yard. The largest prewar U.S. Navy facility, its dry dock and much of the facilities escaped destruction on the Northern departure. Especially important was the haul of some 1,200 guns, many of which were soon on their way to Confederate seacoast fortifications. Still, at the beginning of the war the Confederacy possessed few ships and had no warships of consequence. The navy would have to be built largely from scratch. The South did not lack trained officers, thanks to the resignation of many of Southern birth from the U.S. Navy at the onset of the conflict. Securing trained seamen remained a problem, however, for the vast bulk of these were Northern-born and remained loyal to the Union side. Also, throughout the war the army exercised first claim on scant Confederate manpower. Financial resources were also lacking. Whereas the Union naval budget for 1861–1862 represented about 9 percent of the total U.S. budget, the budget for the South’s navy was only about 4 percent of the total. Mallory planned for a force of only about 3,000 officers and men. The top strength of the Confederate Navy occurred in the spring of 1864, with 753 officers and 4,450 enlisted men. Confederate Marine Corps strength the same year totaled 749 officers and men. These figures represented about one-tenth of the U.S. Navy. Mallory’s problems were heightened by geography. The Confederate coastline stretched some 3,500 miles across nine states from Virginia to Texas, and much of this was doubled with North Carolina’s outer banks. Important ports would require protection, as would the several large rivers that bisected the South. Major ports at Wilmington in North Carolina, Charleston in South Carolina, Pensacola in Florida, Mobile in Alabama, New Orleans in Louisiana, and Galveston in Texas were all important in the shipment of cotton, the principal Southern export, and would require substantial resources for protection. Mallory largely ignored coastal defense, leaving this to the army and land fortifications. His top priority was breaking the Union blockade. As he could never hope to match the North in numbers of ships, Mallory sought to achieve this end with a few powerful technologically advanced ironclads armed with large rifled guns. Mallory also wanted to develop an offensive strategy in which he would carry the

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war to the North. He planned to accomplish this through attacks on Union ports but primarily through commerce raiding. Mallory never was able to realize his hope of sending the ironclad CSS Virginia or other Confederate warships to attack a Northern port, but he did have some success in the war in regard to Union commerce. Mallory had no confidence in privateers, which the Confederacy authorized at the beginning of the war but were soon swept from the seas; the raiders he envisioned were regular commissioned naval vessels that would operate in conformity with established international law. Mallory hoped that the assault on Northern merchant shipping would disrupt the North financially, divert Union warships from the blockade of Southern ports, and help bring an end to the war. In the several months before the outbreak of fighting, Mallory sent agents to the North as well as to Canada and Europe to purchase desperately needed supplies. With Southern shipbuilding facilities lacking, Mallory ordered his naval agents abroad both to purchase ships for conversion into cruisers and to arrange for the construction of other ships for the same purpose. To skirt British neutrality laws, these ships would be sailed to some convenient location where they would receive their armaments (sent out in other ships) and then be commissioned as warships. Among the most successful and notorious of the commerce raiders were the Alabama, Florida, and Shenandoah. Above all, Mallory sought to acquire ironclad ships in sufficient numbers to break the Union blockade and to allow the Confederacy to take the offensive in attacking Northern ports. Mallory understood the importance of ironclads to naval warfare much earlier than did his Union counterpart, Gideon Welles. As early as May 10, 1861, Mallory penned a long letter to the chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs of the Confederate Congress, Charles M. Conrad, in which he discussed the ironclad revolution then under way in Europe and the need for a Confederate offensive strategy based on these ships: I regard the possession of an iron-armored ship as a matter of the first necessity. Such a vessel at this time could transverse the entire coast of the United States, prevent all blockades, and encounter, with a fair prospect of success, their entire Navy. If to cope with them upon the sea we follow their example and build wooden ships, we shall have to construct several at one time; for one or two ships would fall an easy prey to her comparatively numerous steam frigates. But inequality of numbers may be compensated by invulnerability; and thus not only does economy but naval success dictate the wisdom and expediency of fighting with iron against wood, without regard to first cost. Should the committee deem it expedient to begin at once with the construction of such a ship, not a moment is to be lost. The Confederate Congress agreed with Mallory and on May 10, 1861, appropriated $2 million to purchase or construct one or two ironclads in European yards.

670 |â•‡ Strategy, Confederate Naval

Mallory then dispatched agents to Europe toward that end. He also wanted to construct ironclads at home. In June, Mallory directed Lieutenant John M. Brooke to design an ironclad. Brooke came up with a plan for a casemated vessel with inclined sides, the basic design for virtually all Confederate ironclads. In July, Mallory ordered work begun to convert the U.S. Navy steam frigate Merrimack, scuttled at Norfolk, into CSS Virginia. Despite the simple design utilized, the South experienced serious problems with ironclad construction throughout the war. Ironproduction capacity was so limited that the navy was forced to rely on iron from militarily nonessential railroad lines, including Richmond streetcar tracks. The navy was also forced to compete with the army for the limited supply of railroad iron available, and at least 10 ironclads had to be broken up for lack of iron plate. Steam engines were also in short supply, and invariably Confederate ironclads suffered from slow speed and engine breakdowns. The Tredegar Works in Richmond could roll iron plate and cast heavy guns, but in 1861 it was the only such facility in the South. In 1863 the navy bought and staffed the Selma Foundry Works in Alabama to produce guns and to roll iron plate. The ability of the Confederacy to experience such success in the construction of ironclads, given the myriad problems in lack of manufacturing resources and construction facilities, is rather surprising. By May 1863 Mallory had under construction 23 warships, and all but 3 of these were ironclads. As the war progressed, Mallory shifted to a more defensively oriented approach and increasingly experimented with new methods of warfare. He placed great reliance on technological innovation in the hopes that this might offset Northern numbers. Thus, he established a Torpedo Bureau that carried out extensive experiments with torpedoes (the Civil War term for naval mines) and the means to deliver them in the form of spar torpedoes against Union warships. To deliver these, the South built small semisubmersibles (the Davids) and experimented with submarines. CSS H. L. Hunley was the first submarine to sink a warship (USS Housatonic) in the history of warfare. The South did the best it could under the circumstances, but in the end its efforts went for naught. The commerce raiders did force up shipping rates and produced a mass exodus of Northern merchant ships to foreign flag registry. The raiders also forced a reluctant Secretary Welles to dispatch Union naval assets to hunt them down. One by one the commerce raiders were taken, although the Shenandoah did not halt its depredations until well after the end of the war. Although Brooke produced perhaps the best rifled heavy guns of the war, these and the Confederate ironclads were not enough against superior Northern naval assets. The Union naval blockade slowly increased in effectiveness, the Southern rivers were taken, and the South was bisected by large Union armies operating in cooperation with the powerful U.S. Navy. Mallory was much criticized in the Confederate Congress for naval reversals, but he and the Confederate Navy most certainly did the best

Strategy, Union Navalâ•‡ | 671

with the resources available. Another strategy that would have produced a different outcome is hard to imagine. Gary D. Joiner and Spencer C. Tucker See also Alabama, CSS; Amphibious Warfare; Blockade-Runners; Bulloch, James Dunwody; Brooke, John Mercer; Brooke Guns; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Davids, CSS; Davis, Jefferson Finis; Florida, CSS; Guerre de Course; H. L. Hunley, CSS; Housatonic, USS; Ironclads, Confederate; Letters of Marque and Reprisal; Mallory, Stephen Russell; Marine Corps, CSA; Navy, CSA; Norfolk Navy Yard; Privateers; Selma Naval Gun Foundry; Shenandoah, CSS; Spar Torpedo; Strategy, Union Naval; Submarines; Torpedoes; Virginia, CSS; Welles, Gideon

References Anderson, Bern. By Sea and by River: The Naval History of the Civil War. New York: Knopf, 1962. Campbell, R. Thomas. Gray Thunder: Exploits of the Confederate States Navy. Shippensburg, PA: Burd Street Press, 1996. Luraghi, Raimondo. A History of the Confederate Navy. Translated by Paolo D. Coletta. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1996. Musicant, Ivan. Divided Waters: The Naval History of the Civil War. New York: Â�HarperÂ�Collins, 1995. Scharf, J. Thomas. History of the Confederate States Navy from Its Organization to the Surrender of Its Last Vessel. 1887; reprint, New York: Random House, 1996. Simson, Jay W. Naval Strategies of the Civil War: Confederate Innovations and Federal Opportunism. Nashville: Cumberland House, 2001. Still, William N., Jr. Iron Afloat: The Story of the Confederate Armorclads. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1985. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. II, Vol. 2. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1921.

Strategy, Union Naval In April 1861 the North enjoyed overwhelming advantages over the South in terms of population size, industry, railroads, banking, and even agriculture. Yet to win the war, the North would have to invade and physically conquer the South, whereas for the Confederacy to prevail the South merely had to stand on the defensive. The South, with far fewer resources than the North, was by necessity forced to expend most of these on the army. The North could afford to make a much larger effort on the seas. The commitment was indeed substantial. From only 42 ships in commission in March 1861, the U.S. Navy went to 671 ships by 1865. Personnel underwent similar growth. Between 1861 and 1865 the number of officers alone

672 |â•‡ Strategy, Union Naval

increased from 1,300 to 6,700 (the latter figure considerably greater than the size of the entire Confederate Navy), while the number of seamen went from 7,500 to 51,500. In the same period, annual naval expenditures leapt tenfold, from $12 million to $123 million. The notion that the U.S. Navy lagged behind others is false. In 1861 it was in the forefront of naval technology in terms of both ships and ordnance development. Thus, in 1861 fully half of its ships were steamers, and the ordnance system developed by John Dahlgren ranging from boat howitzers to heavy IX- and XI-inch guns was second to none in the world. The navy did lag in embracing ironclads, but it certainly remedied this during the war. President Abraham Lincoln had little military experience and confined most of his attention as commander in chief to the army. He did of course set overall strategy and was one of the prime movers behind the ill-fated 1864 Red River Campaign. Only rarely did the president intervene in day-to-day naval operations and selection of personnel. Lincoln and Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles had an excellent relationship, and the secretary proved a capable administrator. He and Assistant Secretary Gustavus V. Fox ran a remarkably efficient department and were responsible for the day-to-day conduct of operations. Because he lacked specialist knowledge, Welles relied on boards such as the Blockade Board and Ironclad Board, the former becoming a strategic planning staff that determined locations for the establishment of coastal enclaves in the Confederacy to support the blockade. U.S. Army general in chief Winfield Scott came up with the overall strategy that won the war for the North. Scott was one of the few who understood the enormity of the task ahead, warning Lincoln that the war would be both difficult and protracted. Scott estimated that it would take an army of 300,000 men three years just to subdue only the Deep South. While this great army was being trained, Scott wanted a naval blockade of the Confederacy’s Atlantic and Gulf coasts to strangle the South economically and prevent it from importing military supplies from abroad. Once the Northern armies had been recruited and trained, Scott would send them along the principal Southern rivers with flotillas of steam gunboats to bisect the South, cutting it in two along the 1,100-mile-long Mississippi River. Although Scott soon retired from the military, his strategy lived on. Known as the Anaconda Plan for the giant snake that strangles its victims to death, its broad outlines formed the basis of the Northern victory. In consequence, Welles did not have grand strategic dilemmas to resolve but generally fitted navy operations into the overall national plan. The first order of business was to secure ships. Many civilian seagoing steamers and shallow-draft ferries were available, and the navy embarked on a crash program of purchasing these (steam power was an essential element for ships on the blockade and for operations on inland waters). The navy also stepped up its own construction of warships and contracted for others in civilian yards. Initially the

Strategy, Union Navalâ•‡ | 673

army contracted for and had control of Union ships on Western waters. These came to include a number of ironclads. Despite army control, naval officers oversaw construction and commanded these ships. In October 1862 the Western Flotilla passed entirely to navy control. The North also responded to the South’s transformation of USS Merrimack into the ironclad ram CSS Virginia and employed its vastly superior resources to build many more ironclads than the South during the war, most of these of the monitor type. This was probably a mistaken decision, as the most powerful and arguably most effective ironclad of the war was the broadsides-type USS New Ironsides. In his annual report at the end of 1861, Welles spelled out Union naval goals as the “closing of all the insurgent ports,” combined naval and military expeditions against the Confederate coasts, and hunting down on the high seas of the “piratical” Confederate cruisers. Throughout the war, the major Union effort on the water was enforcement of the blockade of the South, which consumed the bulk of Union naval resources. The distances here were vast, and the problems were great. From Virginia to Texas there were 3,500 miles of coastline, and a good bit of this was doubled because of the Atlantic coast outer banks. This did not include the many western rivers. Because of the distances and to foster more effective administration, by February 1862 Welles had divided the blockaders into four squadrons: the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, the East Gulf Blockading Squadron, and the West Gulf Blockading Squadron. Critical in its success was the decision taken by Washington early in the war to secure bases from which the blockading squadrons could operate. The first Union naval operations of the war were mounted to this end as Union ships and troops secured Hatteras Inlet, North Carolina, and Port Royal, South Carolina. The blockade was a vast undertaking and is largely unsung in histories of the war. Ultimately the blockade not only included the bulk of the navy’s warships but also involved creation of a vast logistical network that included large numbers of victualing, coaling, and supply vessels. The navy also set up and maintained repair and supply facilities. Although it was never completely effective, the blockade nonetheless starved the Confederacy of foreign arms imports and, more important, machinery, including steam engines, iron products, and other goods essential to the Confederate war effort. The blockade also inhibited the Confederates from getting to Europe the cotton and other exports necessary to pay for those goods. Technological constraints played a role in Union strategic planning. Thus, the Blockade Board recommended securing bases that could be easily defended once they were taken, that is, sites poorly accessible to the Confederates from the land. But this same factor made it difficult for the Union to launch major land operations from these bases to the interior. For the Union to attack a principal port with easy access to the interior by rail lines meant that the Confederacy would also be

674 |â•‡ Strategy, Union Naval

able to bring up reinforcements quickly. Opportunities early in the war to take the major Confederate Atlantic coast cities, including Charleston, would have meant large commitments of ground troops, and once taken the cities would have had to be held. Nonetheless, a drive against Richmond from the North Carolina coastal enclave coupled with a concurrent drive from the north might have ended the war in a year. Such an operation was imperfectly mounted in Major General George B. McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign. The U.S. Navy also moved large numbers of troops and supplies by water in a number of campaigns, the most prominent being the slow-to-develop Peninsula Campaign. Other examples of effective army-navy cooperation are the capture of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson; operations on the Mississippi, especially against Vicksburg; the Battle of Mobile Bay; and the last stage of the Fort Fisher Campaign in North Carolina. There was also the important Union flotilla in the western theater, operating in conjunction with army forces on the Tennessee, Cumberland, and Mississippi rivers. Naval operations on the Mississippi not only led to the capture of New Orleans and made possible the Union victory at Vicksburg but also cut off the Trans-Â�Mississippi West from the western theater. Union command of the seas and its domination of the great interior western rivers were immensely important to the war’s outcome and a prime example of the advantage of command of the sea in war. Undoubtedly, Union Navy activities shortened the war. Had the conflict been more prolonged, foreign powers might have entered the conflict or at least been inclined to provide additional military assistance to the South. The Civil War reveals the truism that victory in warfare results from all services working together toward a common goal and supported by overwhelming industrial power. Both navies performed well, but the overwhelming advantages enjoyed by the North in industrial might, population, organization, and logistics proved the difference on both land and sea. Gary D. Joiner and Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Anaconda Strategy; Blockade Board; Blockade of the Confederacy; Blockade-Runners; Dahlgren, John Adolph Bernard; Dahlgren Boat Howitzers; Dahlgren Guns; East Gulf Blockading Squadron; Farragut, David Glasgow; Flotilla; Fort Donelson, Battle of; Fort Fisher Campaign; Fort Henry, Battle of; Fox, Gustavus Vasa; Hatteras Inlet, Union Assault on; Ironclad Board, U.S. Navy; Ironclads, Union; Lincoln, Abraham; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Mobile Bay, Battle of; Monitor, USS; Navy, U.S.; New Ironsides, USS; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Porter, David Dixon; Port Royal Sound, Battle of; Red River Campaign; Riverine Warfare; Steam Propulsion; Strategy, Confederate Naval; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Timberclads; Tinclads; Vicksburg Campaign; Virginia, CSS; Welles, Gideon; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Anderson, Bern. By Sea and by River: The Naval History of the Civil War. New York: Knopf, 1962.

Stribling, Cornelius Kincheloeâ•‡ | 675

Joiner, Gary D. Mr. Lincoln’s Brown Water Navy: The Mississippi Squadron. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007. Niven, John. Gideon Welles, Lincoln’s Secretary of the Navy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973. Shea, William L., and Terrence J. Winschel. Vicksburg Is the Key: The Struggle for the Mississippi River. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003. Simson, Jay W. Naval Strategies of the Civil War: Confederate Innovations and Federal Opportunism. Nashville: Cumberland House, 2001. Symonds, Craig L. Lincoln and His Admirals. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Stribling, Cornelius Kincheloe Birth Date: September 22, 1796 Death Date: January 17, 1880 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Pendleton, South Carolina, on September 22, 1796, Cornelius Kincheloe Stribling received a midshipman’s warrant on June 18, 1812. He was promoted to lieutenant on April 1, 1818; to commander on February 28, 1840; and to captain on August 1, 1853. Stribling commanded the East India Squadron during March 1859–July 1861. At the beginning of 1861 he had been in the navy for 48 years: 24 years in service at sea, almost 13 years in assignments ashore, and some 10 years awaiting orders in a navy with too many officers for available assignments. Despite being born in South Carolina, Stribling remained loyal to the Union. Placed on the retired list on December 21, 1861, he was nonetheless assigned to board duties. He was promoted to commodore on the retired list on July 16, 1862. During November 1862–September 1864, Commodore Stribling commanded the Philadelphia Navy Yard. On October 12, 1864, Stribling assumed command of the East Gulf Blockading Squadron at Key West, Florida. On May 30, 1865, he applied to be relieved of his command for reasons of health, but Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles had already decided to do away with the squadron, and on June 9 Stribling was ordered to strike his flag and turn over his command to Acting Rear Admiral Henry K. Thatcher, the West Gulf Blockading Squadron commander, who now assumed command of the combined new Gulf Squadron on July 5. Promoted to rear admiral on the retired list on July 25, 1866, Stribling was a member of the Lighthouse Board during 1866–1871. He died in Martinsburg, West Virginia, on January 17, 1880. His son, Lieutenant John N. Stribling, a graduate of the Naval Academy at Annapolis, joined the Confederate Navy at the same rank at the end of 1861 and died of yellow fever aboard CSS Florida in 1862. Spencer C. Tucker

676 |â•‡ Stringham, Silas Horton See also East Gulf Blockading Squadron; Florida, CSS; Naval Academy, United States; Philadelphia Navy Yard; Thatcher, Henry Knox; Welles, Gideon; West Gulf Blockading Squadron


Stringham, Silas Horton Birth Date: November 7, 1797 Death Date: February 7, 1876 U.S. Navy admiral and commander of the Coast (Atlantic) Blockading Squadron at the beginning of the Civil War. Born in Middletown, New York, on November 7, 1797, Silas Horton Stringham entered the U.S. Navy on a midshipman’s warrant on November 15, 1809, when he was barely 12 years old. During the War of 1812 he served on the frigate USS President and was promoted to lieutenant on December 9, 1814. He saw service in the Mediterranean during the Algerine War (Second Barbary War) of 1815 in the brig Spark and then served in the anti–slave trade patrols off Africa in the sloop Cyane and in West Indies antipiracy duties during 1821–1824. He was promoted to commander on March 3, 1831, and to captain on September 8, 1941. Stringham commanded the New York Navy Yard during 1844–1846. In the Mexican-American War of 1846–1848, he commanded the ship of the line Ohio and took part in the bombardment of Veracruz. He then commanded the Norfolk (Gosport) Navy Yard during 1848–1852. Stringham commanded the Mediterranean Squadron during 1853–1856 before taking charge of the Boston Navy Yard during 1856–1861. At the beginning of 1861 he had been in the navy for some 51 years: 21 years in service afloat, 15 years in shore assignments, and 14 years awaiting orders in a navy with too many officers for available assignments. In 1861 President James Buchanan called Stringham to Washington to help advise him on naval matters. Stringham suggested that the president reinforce Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, but nothing was done until it was too late. On May 1 Stringham took command of the Coast Blockading Squadron, charged with blockading the entire Confederate coastline from Alexandria, Virginia, to Key West, Florida. Three weeks later it became the Atlantic Blockading Squadron. In August 1861 Stringham carried out the first combined operation of the war, during which in a textbook operation the six warships of his squadron secured Hatteras Inlet, North Carolina.

Submarine Battery Serviceâ•‡ | 677

Stringham subsequently came under criticism, both from within the Navy Department and in the press, for the inadequacies of the Union blockade effort and for failing to follow up his Hatteras victory by venturing into the North Carolina sounds. Stung by these unwarranted attacks, Stringham submitted his resignation on September 16, 1861. This came at an ideal time, because the Blockade Board had concluded that the Confederate Atlantic seaboard was too long for one man to supervise. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles agreed, with the result that the Atlantic Blockading Squadron was split into two commands: the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron and the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. Stringham resigned his command on September 16, 1861. He was placed on the retired list on December 21, 1861, but resumed naval service as commander of the Boston Navy Yard in 1862 and continued in that post until the end of the war. Stringham was advanced to rear admiral on the retired list on July 16, 1862, and served as port admiral at New York during 1870–1872. He died at Brooklyn, New York, on February 7, 1876. Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Blockade Board; Boston Navy Yard; Brooklyn Navy Yard; Hatteras Inlet, Union Assault on; Norfolk Navy Yard; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Welles, Gideon

References Browning, Robert M., Jr. From Cape Charles to Cape Fear: The North Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1993. Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 6. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1897.

Submarine Battery Service Confederate naval organization charged with the development and use of electric mines. On June 18, 1862, Confederate Army brigadier general Gabriel J. Rains, who had employed land mines defensively early in the Peninsula Campaign, was given charge of mining the James River to protect that water route to the Confederate capital of Richmond. On September 11, 1862, Rains was ordered to turn over his command to Confederate Navy lieutenant Hunter Davidson, an associate of

678 |â•‡ Submarine Battery Service

Confederate Navy commander Matthew Fontaine Maury who had established the Submarine Battery Service. Rains took command of the new Torpedo Bureau. Maury, a former U.S. Navy officer with an international scientific reputation, believed that mines, then known as torpedoes, were the best means to defend the Confederate waterways. He favored an electric mine that he called a submarine battery. It consisted of an iron tank filled with gunpowder that would be anchored in place. An operator on shore would explode the mine using a battery that sent an electrical charge through insulated wire. The Confederacy was chronically short of insulated wire and batteries, however, and the available batteries could weigh as much as 280 pounds. The Submarine Battery Service enjoyed the full support of Confederate secretary of the navy Stephen R. Mallory but few others. Mallory often had to intervene directly so that the Submarine Battery Service could obtain the supplies it needed. The army chief of ordnance refused to even see a representative from the service, but Davidson was able to have the iron containers specially built for his mines at the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond. The service had its own electrician, R. O. Crowley, who modified the electric batteries so that one man could carry them. Funding was initially hard to come by, but in May 1863 the Confederate Congress appropriated $20,000 for the manufacture of submarine batteries. The following year it appropriated $350,000, and in the last year of the war the total was $6 million. By the autumn of 1862 Davidson and his men had the James River sufficiently mined so that those soldiers guarding the river against a Union crossing could be transferred to other theaters. On August 4, 1863, the U.S. Navy gunboat Commodore Barney, a former New York ferryboat, struck one of the Submarine Battery Service’s torpedoes. Two crewmen drowned, and the ship was disabled. On May 6, 1864, the U.S. Navy gunboat Commodore Jones, another New York ferryboat conversion, was sunk by an electric torpedo that had been submerged for nearly two years. All members of the service were required to take an oath of secrecy not to divulge information on their work. In view of the dangerous nature of their work, men of the Submarine Battery Service all received bonuses. Another danger was the threat by the Union side to hang any Submarine Battery Service members who were captured. By July 1864 Union forces had largely cleared the James River of electric torpedoes, and the Confederacy resorted to less complicated percussion detonated mines but with little success. Throughout the war runaway slaves informed the Union side of the location of mines, and in the last months of the war Crowley had deserted the Confederacy and was guiding Union ships past the stationary torpedoes. Even though the Submarine Battery Service sank only one ship during the war, Confederate President Jefferson Davis credited the service with keeping the James River in Confederate hands for most of the war. Wesley Moody

Submarinesâ•‡ | 679

See also Davidson, Hunter; Davis, Jefferson Finis; James River; James River Squadron, CSA; Mallory, Stephen Russell; Maury, Matthew Fontaine; Richmond, Virginia; Riverine Warfare; Spar Torpedo; Submarines; Torpedoes; Tredegar Iron Works

References Coski, John M. Capital Navy: The Men, Ships and Operations of the James River Squadron. Campbell, CA: Savas, 1996. Perry, Milton F. Infernal Machines: The Story of Confederate Submarine and Mine Warfare. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1965. Wolters, Timothy S. “Electric Torpedoes in the Confederacy: Reconciling Conflicting Histories.” Journal of Military History 72(3) (July 2008): 755–783. Youngblood, Norman. The Development of Mine Warfare: A Most Murderous and Barbarous Conduct. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2006.

Submarines Submarines are defined as watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. Submersibles have only limited underwater capability. American inventors had experimented with submarines since David Bushnell’s Turtle of the American Revolutionary War. Among other submarines proposed or built in the years before the Civil War were two by the Indiana shoemaker Lodner D. Phillips, the second of which succeeded in diving to 100 feet in 1852. Phillips offered his boat to the U.S. Navy but was rejected; he was turned down again when he offered to build another submarine at the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. Nevertheless, the Civil War stimulated unofficial interest in submarines in both the Union and the Confederacy. The side in war without a major surface fleet is invariably the one most interested in new technology to offset the advantage held by its opponent. It was no surprise therefore that when the Civil War began the Confederacy experimented widely with torpedoes (naval mines) and semisubmersibles (the Davids) and submarines to deliver them. Inventors in the Confederacy produced several submarines, the best known being James R. McClintock’s series of boats, initially built as private venture privateers. The first, the Pioneer, was built for Horace L. Hunley’s New Orleans privateering consortium but was scuttled before becoming operational when the city fell to the Union in April 1862. McClintock then built the Pioneer II at Mobile. Efforts to make first an electric motor and then a steam plant functional both failed, and McClintock had to revert to a hand-cranked propeller to drive his boat. The Pioneer II was not a great success, and it sank while being towed to attack the Union fleet off Fort Monroe. The expanded consortium constructed a third boat, the H. L. Hunley, whose trials proved more successful; its transfer in July 1863 to Charleston, South Carolina, led to its proposed use to break the Union blockade by General P. G. T. Beauregard, the local commander. The Confederate Navy, reluctant to trust the abilities or enthusiasm of the boat’s civilian

680 |â•‡ Submarines

crew, seized it and manned it with naval personnel. An accident drowned five of its crew on August 30, and another accident on October 15 drowned the entire replacement crew as well as Hunley. Nonetheless, the boat finally went into action, with a third crew, on the night of February 17, 1864, sinking the steam sloop USS Housatonic, but the H. L. Hunley failed to return. The novelist Clive Cussler funded an expedition that located the wreck of the H. L. Hunley in May 1995. It was raised in August 2000 and is currently undergoing conservation in Charleston. In addition to a series of semisubmersible spar torpedo boats, known as Davids, for the Confederate Navy, the South produced several other submarines. Little is known about the origins of a boat built at New Orleans in June 1861, although it is most probably the vessel that was found during dredging operations there in 1879; it is now on exhibit at the Louisiana State Museum in the city. The Tredegar Iron Works at Richmond, Virginia, built at least one boat to a design by William Cheeney. After successful trials on the James River in October 1861, it was sunk while attacking a Union ship in Hampton Roads the following month. John Halligan designed a submarine, the St. Patrick, that was built at the Selma Navy Yard for the Confederate Navy and was commissioned in January 1865. It made an abortive attack on the gunboat USS Octorara on January 27 and most probably was scuttled in April when the war came to an end. At least three Northern projects saw fruition. The first, the Alligator, was the brainchild of Brutus de Villeroi, a French immigrant inventor who in 1859 had built a submarine for a Philadelphia treasure-hunting consortium. (Before coming to the United States, de Villeroi had taught mathematics in France. His students, it seems, included Jules Verne, whose 1870 novel Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea greatly popularized the notion of submarines.) De Villeroi’s earlier project still was extant in 1861 when war came, and he staged a dramatic demonstration in Philadelphia Harbor to promote his concepts. The Alligator was built for the U.S. Navy by the Philadelphia Navy Yard but was never formally commissioned. After ineffective trials in the James and Appomattox rivers (the waters there were too shallow), the boat was refitted at Washington Navy Yard and was dispatched to engage in operations off Charleston, South Carolina. While under tow to the war zone, the Alligator foundered in a storm off the North Carolina Outer Banks on April 2, 1863; no lives were lost. The wreck is still the object of search efforts. Also vying for a navy contract was Julius Kroehl, a German immigrant engineer who had considerable experience working with diving bells. Kroehl built his design as a private venture after de Villeroi won the official contract, but Kroehl’s boat was still incomplete at the end of the war. He succeeded, however, in selling both his Sub Marine Explorer and his own expertise to the Pacific Pearl Company in 1866 as a platform for exploiting the prolific pearl oyster beds off the Panamanian Pacific coast, where it operated for three years. The abandoned craft was found close inshore in 2000 and currently is under active archaeological investigation.

Sultana Disasterâ•‡ | 681

The third Northern boat, the Intelligent Whale, was built by the American Submarine Company, a group of speculators who planned to use it as a privateer. When that plan failed and the U.S. Navy declined to accept the boat, construction slowed, and it was not completed until 1866. In 1872 the navy eventually agreed to undertake trials of the Intelligent Whale, which it failed, and the submarine was abandoned. It still survives, however, and is on exhibit at the National Guard Militia Museum of New Jersey at Sea Girt. Paul E. Fontenoy See also Alligator, USS; Davids, CSS; Fort Monroe, Virginia; H. L. Hunley, CSS; Housatonic, USS; James River; Philadelphia Navy Yard; Selma Naval Gun Foundry; Spar Torpedo; Strategy, Confederate Naval; Torpedoes; Washington Navy Yard

References Fontenoy, Paul E. Submarines: An Illustrated History of Their Impact. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2007. Ragan, Mark K. Union and Confederate Submarine Warfare in the Civil War. Mason City, IA: Savas, 1999.

Sultana Disaster Event Date: April 27, 1865 On April 27, 1865, the Union side-wheeler Sultana sank in the Mississippi River a few miles north of Memphis, Tennessee. The worst maritime disaster of the Civil War, it claimed some 1,700 to 1,800 dead, most of them Union soldiers recently released from Confederate prison camps at Andersonville and Cahaba. The Sultana was built in Cincinnati in 1813 and displaced 1,719 tons. With a crew of 85 and a legal capacity of 376 people, the ship served as a supply and troop transport between New Orleans and St. Louis during the war. On April 24, 1865, the Sultana arrived at Vicksburg from New Orleans to pick up Union troops for their transfer north. At the time, the Mississippi River was at flood stage, and the ship’s boilers were leaking badly. Captain J. C. Mason ordered the boilers repaired and then began to take on the Union troops. The soldiers, eager to return home after their long ordeal, crowded onto the ship. Muster rolls were not taken before the boarding, and the Sultana shoved off upstream with approximately 2,300 passengers. Memphis was the first stop, and there the boilers again had to be repaired. Soon after the Sultana departed Memphis and while navigating through a series of islands known as the Hens and Chickens, one of the ship’s boilers exploded. The explosion was seen and heard from Memphis several miles downriver. Ships in the vicinity rushed to assist, but the steamboat had been blown apart; some survivors were thrown more than 100 feet.

682 |â•‡ Sultana Disaster

The steamboat Sultana. On April 27, 1865, crowded with released Union prisoners of war, the Sultana exploded and sank in the Mississippi River near Memphis, Tennessee. This worst maritime disaster of the war claimed 1,700-1,800 lives. It has been suggested that the blast was caused by a Confederate coal torpedo. (Library of Congress)

Many were killed outright in the blast, while others drowned. A number, weak from their captivity, did not have the stamina to stay afloat in the current; others were able to grab onto floating debris. For days after the disaster, rescuers fished out survivors from the river. Some 500–600 were taken to Memphis hospitals, where about one-third later died. Because of the timing of this tragedy, it received little attention from the press. The recent assassination of President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865, combined with the surrender of General Robert E. Lee’s army on April 9, 1865, overshadowed the incident. Investigations later concluded that both army officers and civilians were at fault, but no formal charges were ever brought. Some had claimed that a Confederate coal torpedo had caused the boiler explosion, but this has never been proven. William E. Whyte III See also Coal Torpedo; Lincoln, Abraham; Mississippi River

References Huffman, Allen. Sultana: Surviving the Civil War, Prison, and the Worst Maritime Disaster in American History. New York: HarperCollins, 2009. Potter, Jerry O. The Sultana Tragedy: America’s Greatest Maritime Disaster. Gretna, LA: Pelican, 1992.

Sumter, CSSâ•‡ | 683

Sumter, CSS First Confederate Navy commerce raider. Confederate secretary of the navy Stephen R. Mallory was a staunch advocate of commerce raiding, which he hoped would drive up insurance rates in the North and bring economic pressure to bear on President Abraham Lincoln’s administration. On April 18, 1862, Mallory appointed Commander Raphael Semmes to convert the former steamer packet Habana, purchased by the Confederate government at New Orleans. Launched in 1857, the ship had been employed on the New Orleans to Havana route. It was renamed the Sumter. Workmen stripped the Sumter down to what became the gun deck, which was then reinforced. The ship also received additional coal bunkers and was rerigged as a barkentine. With its retractable funnel and screw propeller, there would be no outward means to identify the ship as a steamer. The Sumter was 437 tons and measured 134 feet in length, 30 feet in beam, and 12 feet in draft. Armament consisted of a IX-inch Dahlgren gun in pivot mount and four 32-pounders in broadside. Semmes signed on 114 officers and men. The ship was commissioned on June 3, 1861, and Semmes then ran his ship down to the mouth of the Mississippi River. On June 30 Semmes set out, hoping to escape the blockading U.S. Navy side-wheeler frigate Powhatan and screw sloop Brooklyn. In one of the most exciting chases of the war, the Sumter managed to outrun the Brooklyn. On July 3 the Sumter took its first prize, the merchant bark Golden Rocket. Semmes was, however, handicapped by the British government’s May 14 neutrality proclamation, which was replicated by the other leading maritime powers. As there were thus very few places where captured vessels might be sold, Semmes and other Confederate captains routinely burned the merchant ships they captured. Semmes cruised the Caribbean and took other Northern ships. He then sailed along the South American coast to Brazil and back to the West Indies. Convinced that he would be more successful in European waters, Semmes headed into the Atlantic. Late in November the Sumter narrowly escaped an encounter with the powerful U.S. Navy screw sloop Iroquois but during the crossing took additional prizes. On January 3, 1862, the Sumter put into Cádiz in poor repair, but Spanish authorities there would not permit an overhaul of its engine and ordered Semmes to depart. On January 18 Semmes took two final prizes and a day later put into Gibraltar. British authorities there were more accommodating, but U.S. Navy warships arrived, including the powerful screw sloop Kearsarge. Because his ship needed repairs that could not be made at Gibraltar, Semmes bowed to the inevitable and, under authorization from Confederate commissioner James M. Mason in London, in April laid up the Sumter, paid off most of its crew, and departed for London. In December 1862 the Sumter was sold to a British firm and put back into commercial

684 |â•‡ Susquehanna, USS

service as the Gibraltar. In 1863 it became a blockade-runner. The Gibraltar was apparently lost in a storm in 1867. Despite the Sumter being both too small and too slow to be an effective commerce raider, Semmes had taken 18 prizes in just six months. He had burned 7 and released or bonded 9, one of which was recaptured. The cost to the Confederate government of running the Sumter was only $28,000, a figure less than the least valuable of its prizes. Spencer C. Tucker See also Blockade-Runners; Brooklyn, USS; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Ironclads, Confederate; Kearsarge, USS; Mallory, Stephen Russell; Mason, James Murray; Mississippi River; Powhatan, USS; Semmes, Raphael; Strategy, Confederate Naval

References Semmes, Raphael. Memoirs of Service Afloat: During the War between the States. 1869; reprint, Secaucus, NJ: Blue and Grey Press, 1987. Tucker, Spencer C. Raphael Semmes and the Alabama. Abilene, TX: McWhiney Foundation Press, 1996.

Susquehanna, USS The U.S. Navy side-wheeler frigate Susquehanna was laid down at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on September 8, 1847; it was launched on April 5, 1850, and commissioned on December 24, 1850. John Lenthall was responsible for the hull design. The ship was 257 feet in length between perpendiculars and 45 feet in breadth and had a draft of 19.5 feet. It weighed 2,450 tons (displaced 3,824 tons) and had a bark rig. Its two side wheels allowed a speed of 12 knots. The frigate had a crew complement of 300 men. Although armament varied during the life of the ship, in June 1863 the Susquehanna mounted 2 8-inch (150-pounder) Parrott rifled guns and 12 IX-inch Dahlgren smoothbores. The ship also had one 3.4-inch (12-pounder) Dahlgren boat howitzer. The Susquehanna served in the East India Squadron during 1851–1855 and took part in Commodore Matthew C. Perry’s expedition to Japan during 1853–1854. The ship then served in the Mediterranean Squadron during 1856–1858 and 1860– 1861. With the beginning of the Civil War, the Susquehanna was assigned to the Atlantic Blockading Squadron. The ship took part in the capture of Hatteras Inlet, North Carolina (August 28–29, 1861), and the bombardment and capture of Port Royal, South Carolina (November 7, 1861). Assigned to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron during 1862–1863, the Susquehanna participated in the bombardment of Confederate batteries at Sewell’s Point, Virginia, on May 8, 1862. Out of commission undergoing repair during May 1863–July 1864, the Susquehanna again served in the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron during 1864–1865

Susquehanna, USSâ•‡ | 685

and took part in the two Union assaults on Fort Fisher, North Carolina (December 24–27, 1864, and January 13–15, 1865). During the second attack, one of the ship’s 8-inch (150-pounder) rifled guns burst, wounding four men. During the course of the war, the Susquehanna took eight Confederate prizes. Decommissioned on January 14, 1868, the ship was sold on September 17, 1883, and broken up for scrap. Spencer C. Tucker See also Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Fort Fisher Campaign; Hatteras Inlet, Union Assault on; Lenthall, John; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Philadelphia Navy Yard; Port Royal Sound, Battle of

References Silverstone, Paul H. The Sailing Navy, 1775–1854. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2001. Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 11. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1900. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. II, Vol. 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1921.


T Tacony, CSS The Tacony was a bark-rigged Northern merchantman of 296 tons burden built at New Castle, Delaware, in 1856. It was captured by the Confederate commerce raider Clarence on June 12, 1863. The Clarence was itself a former Union merchantman taken by the Confederate commerce raider Florida on May 6. Lieutenant Charles W. Read sought and received permission from the captain of the Florida, Lieutenant John N. Maffitt, to cruise in the Clarence with a volunteer crew of 20 men and a single 12-pounder boat howitzer. After the Clarence took the Tacony off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, Read determined that this prize was a better sailer, and he transferred his crew and their howitzer to it. The Tacony is also known as the Florida No. 2. Read then burned the Clarence. In a week, Read took a half dozen prizes in the Tacony. Proceeding north up the coast to New England, the Tacony took additional prizes for a total of 15. With some 40 Union warships now searching for the Tacony, Read burned that ship on June 25, 1863, and transferred his men to their latest prize, the fishing schooner Archer, which had been taken the day before. Spencer C. Tucker See also Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Florida, CSS; Maffitt, John Newland; Read, Charles William

References Jones, Robert A. Confederate Corsair: The Life of Lt. Charles W. “Savez” Read. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2000. Shaw, David W. Sea Wolf of the Confederacy: The Daring Civil War Raids of Naval Lt. Charles W. Read. New York: Free Press, 2004. Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989.

Tallahassee, CSS The Confederate Navy commerce raider Tallahassee was the former blockaderunner Atlanta. It had already made several passages through the Union blockade off Wilmington, North Carolina, when the Atlanta was purchased by the Confederate government in 1864. Designed by Captain T. E. Symonds of the Royal Navy 687

688 |â•‡ Tallahassee, CSS

and built by J. & W. Dudgeon of Millwall for the London, Chatham & Dover Railway Company and launched in 1863, it had an iron hull and displaced 546 tons. The ship was 250 feet in length; 23 feet, six inches in beam; and had a draft of 13 feet, four inches. Described as an “admirable sea boat,” it was also fast. Its twin 100-horsepower engines on two screws drove the schooner at up to 17 knots, and it made the Dover to Calais crossing of the English Channel in only 77 minutes. The ship had a crew complement of 120 men. Commissioned as CSS Tallahassee in July 1864, the ship mounted one 84-pounder gun, along with two 32-pounders and two 24-pounders. Captained by Confederate Navy commander James Taylor Wood, the Tallahassee sailed from Wilmington on August 6, 1864, hunting for U.S. merchant ships in the North Atlantic. On a 19-day raid along the northern U.S. coast, it took an astonishing 33 prizes, destroying 26 of them and bonding and releasing another 7. Sailing as far north as Halifax, Nova Scotia, it returned to Wilmington on August 26. The Tallahassee was then employed as a guard boat. Well aware of the presence of the Chickamauga and Tallahassee at Wilmington, Acting Rear Admiral Samuel P. Lee, commanding the U.S. Navy’s North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, added additional steamers off the port in an effort to keep the two ships from escaping and attacking Union merchant shipping. These measures, while they did not contain the two ships, did result in the capture of a number of blockade-runners, including three of five ships carrying military supplies for North Carolina and the Advance, owned by the state of North Carolina. The loss of the Advance particularly angered North Carolina governor Zebulon Vance, who blamed the loss of the blockade-runners on the presence of the additional Union blockaders off Wilmington to prevent the escape of the Chickamauga and Tallahassee. He demanded that the two commerce raiders be disarmed and converted to transports or blockade-runners. Confederate secretary of the navy Stephen R. Mallory disagreed, but Vance was correct in his assumption, for the increased number of Union warships led to a 20 percent loss rate for blockade-runners from September 1 to December 16, whereas there had been only a 10 percent loss over the previous three months. The Tallahassee was renamed the Olustee. The Olustee and the Chickamauga were ready to sail by late October. Although the Chickamauga, commanded by Lieutenant John Wilkinson, escaped unharmed on the evening of October 28, the Olustee was not so lucky. Now commanded by Lieutenant William H. Ward, it was detected leaving Old Inlet and was fired on and damaged. It continued on its mission, nonetheless, and attacked Union merchant shipping off the Delaware Capes. During the next 10 days, the Olustee seized and burned six Union merchantmen (the Chickamauga took seven, burning four and bonding three). Both ships then were forced to return to their base. Sighted by the U.S. Navy gunboat Sassacus off Cape Charles on November 6, Ward succeeded in escaping after an all-day chase that lasted into the night. Sighted again on November 7, the Olustee was

Tallahassee, CSSâ•‡ | 689

pursued by the U.S. Navy gunboats Lilian, Montgomery, and Quaker City. After a four-hour chase, the Union warships opened fire on the Olustee, which returned fire. None of the ships involved were hit before Ward was able to escape into a fog bank. Although the Sassacus had continued south and warned the blockaders off Wilmington of the Olustee’s approach, Ward was still able to slip into New Inlet on the night of November 8. Wilkinson had, meanwhile, sailed the Chickamauga to Bermuda. There he reÂ�fueled and, although fired on by Union blockaders off Wilmington, was able to return to port on the night of November 15. Wilkinson then traveled to Richmond, where he succeeded in convincing Mallory that the presence of the raiders at Wilmington was severely hampering Confederate blockade-running. Wilkinson urged that the cruisers be converted to blockade-runners, and he secured Mallory’s permission to convert one of them. Since the Chickamauga was known to British authorities in Bermuda as a warship, he converted the Olustee. With the Tallahassee disarmed and now appropriately renamed the Chameleon, Wilkinson again ran the blockade on December 24, 1864. Sailing to Bermuda to secure supplies there for the Confederate Army, Wilkinson had difficulty convincing British authorities that his ship was not a privateer. Two weeks were thus lost, and by the time he arrived off Fort Fisher in mid-January 1865 he did not see any signals (the fort had just fallen to Union assault). He went to sea and tried again the next night but was detected by two Union gunboats. Wilkinson used his ship’s superior speed to escape to sea again. He then sailed the Chameleon to Liverpool, where it arrived on April 9 and was seized by the British government and sold. It was about to enter merchant service when the United States government instituted a suit and secured control of the ship on April 26. Again sold and renamed the merchant ship Amelia, it was subsequently the Haya Maru operating in Japanese waters, although probably under the British flag. The ship struck a reef between Kobe and Yokohama and was lost on June 17, 1869. Spencer C. Tucker See also Blockade-Runners; Chickamauga, CSS; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Fort Fisher Campaign; Lee, Samuel Phillips; Mallory, Stephen Russell; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Privateers; Wood, John Taylor

References Hearn, Chester G. Gray Raiders of the Sea: How Eight Confederate Warships Destroyed the Union’s High Seas Commerce. Camden, ME: International Marine Publishing, 1992. Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. U.S. Navy Department, Naval History Division. Civil War Naval Chronology, 1861– 1865. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971. Wise, Stephen R. Lifeline of the Confederacy: Blockade Running during the Civil War. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988.

690 |â•‡Tattnall, Josiah

Tattnall, Josiah Birth Date: November 9, 1795 Death Date: June 14, 1871 Confederate Navy officer. Born on the family plantation Bonaventure near Savannah, Georgia, on November 9, 1795, Josiah Tattnall was the son of a Georgia senator and governor. Orphaned in 1805, Tattnall was sent to England to live with his paternal grandfather for schooling. Tattnall entered the U.S. Navy on a midshipman’s warrant on January 1, 1812, and was assigned to the frigate Constellation. Although his ship was blockaded in Hampton Roads by the British during the War of 1812, Tattnall saw action in the Battle of Craney Island in June 1813. Assigned to the Washington Navy Yard, Tattnall took part in the Battle of Bladensburg in August 1814. He then took part in the Algerine War in the sloop of war Epervier. Promoted to lieutenant on April 1, 1818, Tattnall served in the frigate Macedonian in the Pacific during 1818–1820. In the schooner Jackall during 1822– 1823, he participated in antipiracy operations in the West Indies. He then served in the frigate Constitution in the Mediterranean. In April 1831, Lieutenant Tattnall assumed command of the schooner Grampus in the Gulf of Mexico. Tattnall was ashore for almost four years awaiting orders until he returned to active duty in 1836, when he served three years at the Boston Navy Yard. He was promoted to commander on February 25, 1838. Following service in the Mediterranean and African squadrons, in 1846 during the Mexican-American War he was assigned command of the converted steamer Spitfire, participating in various operations, including the attack on Veracruz. On April 17, 1847, during the expedition up the Tuxpan River, Tattnall was wounded by musket fire from the shore. Following the war, Tattnall returned to duty at the Boston Navy Yard. He was promoted to captain on February 5, 1850, and the next month he took command of the side-wheeler Saranac. During 1851–1854 he commanded the Pensacola Navy Yard, and during 1854–1855 he was flag captain of the ship of the line Independence in the Pacific Squadron. During 1858–1860, he commanded the East India Squadron with his flag in the screw steamer San Jacinto during which time he created a minor diplomatic incident when he violated American neutrality to provide covering fire to a withdrawing British force that had attempted to take the Dagu or Baihe Forts on the Hai (Baihe) River near Tianjin (Tientsin), China. Tattnall’s explanation for his action, “Blood is thicker than water,” became famous. Returning to the United States in 1860, Tattnall transported the first Japanese diplomatic mission to the United States. He next commanded the Sackets Harbor Naval Station in New York State. Although personally averse to secession, Tattnall resigned his commission on February 21, 1861. A week later he was commissioned the senior officer in the Georgia Navy. On March 26, Tattnall was also commissioned a captain in the Confederate Navy.

Tecumseh, USSâ•‡ | 691

Tattnall commanded the few Southern naval units available in the defense of Port Royal until it was secured by the U.S. Navy on November 7, 1861. In March 1862, Tattnall succeeded the wounded Franklin Buchanan in command of the James River Squadron. On April 11, he departed the Norfolk (Gosport) Navy Yard in the Confederate ironclad Virginia with five smaller ships into Hampton Roads in an attempt to do battle with USS Monitor, which however remained under the guns of Fort Monroe. Tattnall then ordered the Confederate steamer Jamestown to capture three Union transports off Hampton. Learning of the loss of the Norfolk Navy Yard on May 9 and unable to lighten the Virginia sufficiently to get it up the James, Tattnall ordered the Confederate ironclad destroyed on May 11, 1862. A subsequent court-martial cleared him in this action. Succeeded in command of the James River Squadron by John R. Tucker on May 15, Tattnall resumed command of the naval forces of Georgia until March 1863, when he concentrated on the defense of Savannah. With the fall of that city to Union forces under Major General William T. Sherman imminent, he ordered destruction of the remaining Confederate ships, including the ironclad Savannah. Tattnall was subsequently taken prisoner at Augusta. Paroled in May 1865, Tattnall lived in Nova Scotia for four years until he returned to Savannah as inspector of the port. He died in that city on June 14, 1871. Spencer C. Tucker See also Boston Navy Yard; Buchanan, Franklin; Fort Monroe, Virginia; Hampton Roads, Battle of; James River Squadron, CSA; Monitor, USS; Norfolk Navy Yard; Pensacola Navy Yard; Port Royal Sound, Battle of; Sackets Harbor Naval Station; Savannah River Squadron; Tucker, John Randolph; Virginia, CSS; Washington Navy Yard

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Jones, Charles C. The Life and Services of Commodore Josiah Tattnall. Savannah, GA: Morning News Stream Printing House, 1887. Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Tecumseh, USS A U.S. Navy iron-hulled, single-turret monitor. One of nine Canonicus-class monitors, the Tecumseh was built in Jersey City, New Jersey, by Charles Secor & Company, a New York–based firm. The Tecumseh was laid down in September 1863 and commissioned on April 19, 1864. The Tecumseh was 235 feet in overall length and

692 |â•‡ Tecumseh, USS

Print after a painting by J. O. Davidson in 1886. It depicts the Union and Confederate squadrons in the Battle of Mobile Bay on August 5, 1864, the moment USS Tecumseh strikes a mine (“torpedo”). Confederate ships (left foreground) are the Morgan, Gaines, and the Tennessee. Union monitors visible astern of Tecumseh are the Manhattan and Winnebago. USS Brooklyn is leading the outer line of Union warships, immediately followed by the Hartford. (Naval History and Heritage Command)

had a beam of 43 feet, 8 inches and draft of 13 feet, 6 inches. It displaced 2,100 tons and had a design speed of 13 knots from two engines. The turret armor was 10 inches thick; the armor on the ship’s sides was 5 inches thick, bolstered by two 4-inch stringers. A 5-inch-thick protective glacis approximately 15 inches high provided additional protection around the turret base. Armament was increased from the Passaic-class’s awkward arrangement of one XV-inch Dahlgren and one XI-inch Dahlgren to a pair of 15-inchers. The Tecumseh also carried two 12-pounder boat howitzers. Commander Tunis Augustus M. Craven was the commanding officer. The monitor’s first assignment was with the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, as part of the James River Flotilla from April to June 1864. Its mission was to protect the shipping providing logistical support to Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant’s forces by preventing Confederate warships from passing down the James. The ironclad took part in an engagement at Trent’s Reach, Virginia, on June 21, 1864. In early July, the Tecumseh was ordered to the Gulf of Mexico to join Rear Admiral David G. Farragut’s West Gulf Blockading Squadron in operations against Mobile Bay, Alabama. The ship was first towed to Pensacola, Florida, and from there to a position just outside the bay. Early on the morning of August 5, 1864,

Tender Vesselâ•‡ | 693

the Tecumseh led 3 monitors, followed by 14 other warships, into Mobile Bay. At 6:47 a.m., it opened fire on Confederate artillery positions ashore as Confederate naval forces centered on the ironclad ram Tennessee sortied to meet the attackers. The Tecumseh and another monitor, the Manhattan, were charged with preventing the Tennessee from engaging the Union’s vulnerable wooden warships. With the Tennessee maneuvering for just that reason, Craven turned the ship to engage the Tennessee, now only 200 yards ahead. This maneuver skirted inside a line of Confederate torpedoes (moored mines) and the Tecumseh almost immediately struck and exploded one of the torpedoes, which tore a gaping hole in its hull. The ironclad capsized and sank in less than half a minute. Although 21 of its crew managed to escape through the turret, Craven and 92 others drowned. Despite the loss of the Tecumseh, Farragut pressed the attack and he and his squadron won a great victory. The Tecumseh wreck site is located 300 yards northwest of Fort Morgan. The still-intact ship, which lies bottom up, is almost completely covered with sediment. The Tecumseh remains the property of the U.S. government and is protected by the Sunken Military Craft Act. Glenn E. Helm See also Craven, Tunis Augustus Macdonough; Farragut, David Glasgow; Fort Morgan, Alabama; Gulf of Mexico; Ironclads, Confederate; Ironclads, Union; James River; Mobile Bay, Battle of; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Passaic-Class Monitors; Tennessee, CSS; Torpedoes; Trent’s Reach, Battle of; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Cracknell, William H. United States Monitors of the Civil War. Windsor, Berkshire, UK: Profile Publications, 1973. Friend, Jack. West Wind, Flood Tide: The Battle of Mobile Bay. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2004. Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. United States Navy. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol. 7. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 1981. West, W. Wilson, Jr. USS Tecumseh Shipwreck Management Plan. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 1997.

Tender Vessel A small vessel or craft used to attend a larger one. Such vessels take ashore and bring aboard passengers, goods, stores, and mails. They also serve as a seaman’s liberty launch. The term also refers to a vessel that attends a warship, usually in a harbor, by supplying the ship with provisions and munitions and carrying mail and dispatches. The word derives from the French and Old French tendre, meaning “to aid.” Walter Jaffee

694 |â•‡ Tennessee, CSS See also Receiving Ship; Squadron

References Kemp, Peter, ed. Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea. London: Oxford University Press, 1976. Kerchove, René de. International Maritime Dictionary. Princeton, NJ: D. Van Nostrand, 1961. King, Dean. A Sea of Words. New York: Henry Holt, 1997. Rogers, John G. Origins of Sea Terms. Boston: Nimrod, 1984.

Tennessee, CSS One of the most powerful Confederate ironclads of the Civil War. The Tennessee II (usually referred to simply as the Tennessee) was laid down at Selma, Alabama, some 150 miles upriver from Mobile, in October 1862. Launched in February 1863, it was commissioned on February 16, 1864. The Tennessee was 209 feet long and had a beam of 48 feet and draft of 14 feet. It displaced 1,273 tons and had a crew complement of 133 men. A modified Columbia-class (Columbia and Texas) ironclad, it had their distinctive shorter casemate, 79 feet long. Heavily armored, it had 6 inches of iron on the casemate, 5 inches on its sides, and 2 inches on the deck. It mounted six Brooke rifled guns: two 7-inchers on pivot mounts fore and aft and four 6.4-inchers in broadsides. Its engines had been taken from a riverboat steamer. As with so many Confederate ironclads, the Tennessee was inadequately powered for its weight and thus difficult to maneuver. Its principal defect, however, was its relatively exposed rudder chains that ran in open channels on the after deck. The most powerful vessel in Rear Admiral Franklin Buchanan’s Mobile Bay Squadron, the Tennessee took a leading role in the August 5, 1864, Battle of

The powerful Confederate ironclad Tennessee, captained by Commander James D. Johnston, served as Rear Admiral Franklin Buchanan’s flagship in the Battle of Mobile Bay, August 5, 1864, when it fought the Union squadron virtually alone. Captured in that battle, the Tennessee was taken into the U.S. Navy. (Library of Congress)

Tennessee Riverâ•‡ | 695

Mobile Bay, engaging largely by itself Rear Admiral David G. Farragut’s entire Union squadron, which had penetrated the bay. Buchanan made a last charge at the Union ships endeavoring to ram the Union flagship Hartford. In the ensuing engagement, the Union warships attacked the Tennessee’s vulnerable steering and were able to render it virtually dead in the water. With his ship’s ammunition supply almost exhausted, four of the gun ports jammed shut, the smokestack down, and two men killed and himself wounded, Buchanan authorized its surrender. Commissioned to the U.S. Navy on August 19, 1864, USS Tennessee participated in the Union assault on Confederate Fort Morgan four days later. The Tennessee was then substantially repaired, but it was decommissioned on August 19, 1865, and sold on November 27, 1867, when it was broken up for scrap. Spencer C. Tucker See also Buchanan, Franklin; Farragut, David Glasgow; Fort Morgan, Alabama; Hartford, USS; Ironclads, Confederate; Mobile Bay, Battle of

References Friend, Jack. West Wind, Flood Tide: The Battle of Mobile Bay. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2004. Gibbons, Tony. Warships and Naval Battles of the Civil War. New York: Gallery Books, 1989. Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. Still, William N., Jr. Iron Afloat: The Story of the Confederate Armorclads. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1985.

Tennessee River Largest tributary of the Ohio River. The Tennessee River, which is 885 miles long, begins in Knoxville, Tennessee, and is formed by the confluence of the French Broad and Holston rivers. From there it flows southwest, then more due west into northern Alabama, and then sharply north toward Kentucky, where it empties into the Ohio River at Paducah, Kentucky. Near its end, the river forms the relatively short boundary between Kentucky and Missouri. The Tennessee River, which has more than 30 tributaries, drains an area of about 40,875 square miles. Numerous important cities lie in its path, including Knoxville and Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Decatur and Huntsville, Alabama. The Tennessee River has had a number of names over the last several centuries, including the Cherokee River after the Cherokee nation, a large group of Native Americans who lived in the Tennessee River Valley prior to white settlement of the region. The river is generally navigable to medium-sized ships, although Muscle

696 |â•‡Thatcher, Henry Knox

Shoals, located in the central part of its course, created problems for river pilots. Its lower course was the most easily navigated. The Tennessee was prone to catastrophic flooding, which caused serious erosion problems and claimed the lives of many people living near its path. As a result, the Tennessee was dammed over a period of many years, most recently in the 1930s and 1940s as part of the massive New Deal program known as the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). The TVA controlled the worst of the river’s flooding and erosion, generated electric power and drinking water for millions of people in the Tennessee Valley, and simplified the navigation of the Cumberland, Ohio, and Tennessee river systems. The TVA, which is still in operation today, is considered one of the New Deal’s great success stories. The Tennessee River afforded an east invasion route into the western part of the Confederacy, and so the waterway was considered a strategic area. It also parallels the Cumberland River for a time, which was another militarily strategic waterway. In February 1862, Union forces under Major General Ulysses S. Grant, along with gunboats under Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote, steamed up the Tennessee River, precipitating the Battle of Fort Henry on February 6. During February 6–10, Lieutenant Seth Ledyard Phelps led three timberclad gunboats—the Conestoga (flagship), Lexington, and Tyler—up the Tennessee as far as Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr. See also Conestoga, USS; Cumberland River; Foote, Andrew Hull; Fort Henry, Battle of; Lexington, USS; Ohio River; Phelps, Seth Ledyard; Phelps’s Raid; Timberclads; Tyler, USS

References Benke, Arthur, and Colbert Cushing. Rivers of North America. Burlington, MA: Elsevier Academic, 2005. Davidson, Donald. The Tennessee, Vol. 2, The New River: Civil War to TVA. Nashville: J. S. Sanders, 1992.

Thatcher, Henry Knox Birth Date: May 26, 1806 Death Date: April 5, 1880 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Thomaston, Maine, on May 26, 1806, Henry Knox Thatcher was a grandson of Revolutionary War major general Henry Knox. Thatcher was briefly a cadet at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, in 1822, but he resigned when he received a midshipman’s warrant on March 4, 1823. Thatcher was promoted to passed midshipman on March 23, 1829; to lieutenant on February 28, 1833; and to commander on September 14, 1855. At the beginning of 1861, Thatcher had been in the navy for 37 years: 15 years of service at sea, 8 years in assignments ashore, and 14 years awaiting orders in a navy with too many officers for available billets.

Timbercladsâ•‡ | 697

When the Civil War began, Thatcher was the executive officer of the Boston Navy Yard. In November 1861, he commanded the sloop Constellation in the Mediterranean. On July 16, 1862, he was one of six officers promoted directly from commander to commodore. On his return from the Mediterranean, in late September Thatcher assumed command of the screw frigate Colorado in the West Gulf Blockading Squadron and had charge of blockaders off Mobile Bay. Thatcher remained on station until January 1864. In February he arrived at the Portsmouth Navy Yard, Maine, where the Colorado underwent repairs. While that work was being accomplished, Thatcher sailed a storeship to Port Royal, South Carolina, with supplies for the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. The repairs to the Colorado complete, Thatcher resumed its command and joined the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron. He commanded its 1st Division in the campaign to take Fort Fisher, North Carolina, in December 1864 and January 1865. On February 23, 1865, Thatcher took command of the West Gulf Blockading Squadron. Supporting army operations ashore, Thatcher played an important role in the campaign to capture Mobile, Alabama, achieved on April 12, 1865. On July 13, Thatcher assumed command of the new Gulf Squadron, formed from the two reduced and combined former Gulf blockading squadrons, his own and that of Acting Rear Admiral Cornelius K. Stribling. He held this assignment until May 1866. Promoted to rear admiral on July 25, 1866, Thatcher was appointed to command the North Pacific Squadron. He held this command until August 1868. Placed on the retired list on May 26, 1868, Thatcher was port admiral of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, during 1869–1870. Thatcher died in Boston on April 5, 1880. Spencer C. Tucker See also Boston Navy Yard; Fort Fisher Campaign; Mobile Bay, Battle of; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Portsmouth Navy Yard; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Stribling, Cornelius Kincheloe; West Gulf Blockading Squadron


Timberclads Early Civil War warships, part of the riverine force created by the U.S. government to fight on the inland waters in the West. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles ordered Commander John Rodgers to the western theater with instructions to secure such a

698 |â•‡Tinclads

force. By June 8, 1861, Rodgers had negotiated contracts to buy and convert three wooden side-wheel freight-and-passenger Ohio River steamers into gunboats. These were the Tyler (four years old and 420 tons), Lexington (one year old and 362 tons), and Conestoga (two years old and 572 tons). Their conversions were carried out at Louisville, Kentucky, by the Marine Railway and Dry Dock Company of Cincinnati. The three were paid for and under control of the U.S. War Department. Commanded by navy officers, they were later handed over to navy control. The steamers were reinforced to enable them to carry heavy guns, and five-inch-thick oak was installed to provide protection against rifle fire. This resulted in their being known as timberclads. The three gunboats arrived at their base at Cairo, Illinois, in mid-August 1861 and were soon in service. On commissioning, the Conestoga (dimensions unknown) mounted four 32-pounders; the Lexington (177 feet, 7 inches long with a beam of 36 feet, 10 inches and draft of hull of 6 feet) mounted four 64-pounders and two 32-pounders; and the Tyler (180 feet long with a beam of 45 feet, 4 inches and a draft of hull of 6 feet) had six 64-pounders in broadside and one 32-pounder in the stern. The timberclads were an effective stopgap measure until the new ironclads could be brought into service. They saw useful service in battles and operations along the Cumberland, Tennessee, and Mississippi rivers, especially in the battles of Belmont (November 1861), Forts Henry and Donelson (February 1862), and Shiloh (Pittsburg Landing, April 1862). The Conestoga was lost in a collision in March 1864; the other two survived the war and were sold in August 1865. Spencer C. Tucker See also Belmont, Battle of; Cairo Naval Station; Conestoga, USS; Cumberland River; Fort Donelson, Battle of; Fort Henry, Battle of; Lexington, USS; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Phelps’s Raid; Pittsburg Landing; Riverine Warfare; Rodgers, John; Tennessee River; Tyler, USS; Welles, Gideon

References Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. Smith, Myron J., Jr. The Timberclads in the Civil War: The Lexington, Conestoga and Tyler on the Western Waters. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008. Tucker, Spencer C. Andrew Foote: Civil War Admiral on Western Waters. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Tinclads U.S. warships supplied to Rear Admiral David D. Porter’s Mississippi Squadron. These light vessels were armored with metal plate less than an inch thick, capable

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of protecting only against small-arms fire. In addition to their names, they sported numbers painted on their pilothouses, the only vessels of the war to be so identified. Stern-wheelers and side-wheelers of very light draft (only two feet for many of them), the tinclads were specifically developed for service on the shallow rivers emptying into the Mississippi and proved highly effective in Union patrol and interdiction operations along these waterways. The largest of the tinclads (and the only one without a number) was the Black Hawk. The flagship of both Porter and his successor Rear Admiral Samuel Phillips Lee, it was some 260 feet in overall length and had a beam of 45 feet, 6 inches and draft of hull of 6 feet. In 1862, it mounted two 32-pounders, two 4.2-inch (30-pounder) Parrott rifled guns, and two 12-pounder Dahlgren boat howitzers (one rifled). Most of the tinclads were much smaller, on the order of 100–200 tons, but number 20, the General Pillow, was only 38 tons. At 81 feet, five inches long with a beam of 17 feet, one inch and a draft of 3 feet, that vessel mounted two 12-pounder Dahlgren boat howitzers. Although the larger tinclads mounted a few heavier guns, their principal armament consisted of the 24- and 12-pounder boat howitzers, which were sufficient for patrol work. Tinclads began to reach Rear Admiral David D. Porter’s Mississippi Squadron in the autumn of 1862. While they were not sufficiently armored or gunned to take on Confederate naval combatants or major shore batteries, they could engage and drive off the occasional Confederate field piece or cavalry effort that formed part of the Confederate antishipping campaign. Tinclads convoyed transport and supply vessels; served as light replenishment ships; carried dispatches; acted as towboats, minesweepers, and blockaders; and simply showed the flag. The Union placed in service more than 60 tinclads during the war, 13 of which were lost during the conflict. Spencer C. Tucker See also Black Hawk, USS; Dahlgren Boat Howitzers; Lee, Samuel Phillips; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Porter, David Dixon; Red River Campaign; Riverine Warfare; Side-wheeler; Stern-wheeler

References Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. Smith, Myron J., Jr. Tinclads in the Civil War: Union Light-Draught Gunboat Operations on Western Waters, 1862–1865. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2010. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Tonnage A complex and often bewildering term generally used to describe the size or cargo capacity of a ship. Tonnage has as many as 23 different uses throughout maritime

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history, but originated as an arbitrary 14th-century volume measure implemented for tax purposes. The original “Tun” was a standard-size French wine barrel of 40 cubic feet capacity that could be filled with 252 gallons of water, weighing 2,240 pounds. The volume capacity of a ship could be described by how many of these wine barrels could be stowed in the hold, and originally this was how the calculation was made. By the 1600s, a formulation was set up by English shipwright Mathew Baker whereby the internal volume of the ship was calculated by multiplying the length of the ship’s keel, times its breadth, times its depth of hold, divided by 100 (instead of the original 40 cubic feet). A “Baker’s rule ton” was always rounded to the nearest 10. By 1633, the Baker’s rule ton had become an exact measure and not rounded. In 1664 the depth of hold was considered the same as one-half the breadth of the ship and the calculation of a Baker’s rule ton was changed accordingly. The divisor was also changed from 100 to 96 and down to 94 in 1695, thereby increasing the official tonnage of a ship and the tax owed by a merchant. During this time, the French began to measure their ships in tons displacement, a weight measurement based on seawater. Baker’s rule tonnage remained largely unchanged in the English system for the next 78 years, although it was redefined in 1709, 1716, 1738, and 1744. In 1773 it was supplanted by “old measure tonnage,” which was equal to overall length minus three-fifths the breadth, times the breadth, times one-half the breadth, all divided by 94. Old measure, or tons burthen, was itself thrown out in 1854 in favor of “new measure tonnage” or “Moorsom’s rule” tonnage. This is calculated as the gross tons (100 cubic feet) minus the nonearning space in the ship (chain lockers, crew quarters, etc.). Today this measurement is called net registered tons and figures in the universal measurement system adopted by most countries in 1969. Warships in the late 19th and 20th centuries are usually defined in tons displacement similar to the system adopted early on by the French. Warships can be measured in light, standard, or full load tons displacement. Tons displacement is calculated in long tons (2,240 pounds) or the equivalent of 35 cubic feet of seawater. Additional tonnage terms include freight tons (40 cubic feet), measurement tons (40 cubic feet), short tons (2,000 pounds), metric tons (1,000 kilograms or 2,205 pounds), and dead weight tons (loaded displacement minus light displacement as defined by load lines), a measure used extensively in the measurement of bulk cargoes. Bradley Rodgers See also Iron and Steel Manufacture, Impact on Ship Construction

References Corkhill, Michael. The Tonnage Measurement of Ships: Towards a Universal System. London: Fairplay Publications, 1977.

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Lane, Frederic C. “Tonnages, Medieval and Modern.” Economic History Review, 2nd Series, 17 (1964): 213–233. MacAlvanah, Robert. “Ship Tonnages.” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 89 (1963): 132–136. Walton, Gary M. “Colonial Tonnage Measurements: A Comment.” Journal of Economic History 27 (1967): 392–397.

Torpedoes The Civil War saw considerable innovation in weaponry. One of the most notable of these occurred at sea with the underwater mine, known during the war as the torpedo. The name came from the electric ray fish that shocks its prey. Because mines are principally defensive weapons, they have traditionally been the choice of weaker naval powers. The United States led the world in the development of underwater mine warfare. During the Revolutionary War, in January 1778, David Bushnell deployed mines without success against British warships in the Delaware River. These were of the “contact” variety; they were floating kegs of powder triggered by a flintlock inside the keg. The shock of the mine striking an object released the hammer, which then exploded the mine. In 1801, American Robert Fulton attempted to interest Napoleon Bonaparte in mines of his invention to be employed in the Thames against the British. When Bonaparte rejected the plan, Fulton contracted with the British government to employ these same mines against the French. In 1804 and 1805, Fulton attacked French ships at Boulogne. The mines were dropped from cutters and secured in pairs by means of long lines, with the plan that the line would catch on the cables of an enemy ship and the current would then cause them to rest against its sides, where they would explode. A number of Fulton’s mines exploded, but without significant effect. In October 1805, Fulton demonstrated the power of mines by blowing up the 200-ton captured Danish brig Dorothea. It was the first time in history that such a large vessel had been thus destroyed. With the death in 1806 of his chief supporter, Prime Minister William Pitt, Fulton returned to America and presented his inventions to the U.S. government. In a test in New York Harbor in July 1807, Fulton blew up a 200-ton brig, but only after several attempts. In 1810 he carried out an experiment against a sloop, but it failed because the defenders were permitted to deploy a net. During the War of 1812, the Americans attempted without success to employ Fulton’s mines against British ships off Norfolk and in Long Island Sound. Work was also going on in other countries, and new means of detonation were developed. In Russia, Prussian émigré Moritz-Hermann Jacobi experimented with a galvanic or electronically detonated mine. Jacobi, Americans Fulton and Samuel Colt, and Russian baron Pavel L’vovich Schilling von Cannstadt all developed

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A Civil War torpedo. During the conflict the term torpedo was used for what is today called a mine. These were positioned below the water surface. During the war the Confederates—at great disadvantage in more traditional warfare methods—were the chief practitioners of mine warfare. (Kevin King)

working mines by the time of the Crimean War (1854–1856), when the Russians deployed a number of mines to deny the British access by water to St. Petersburg. Jacobi’s mines were zinc canisters filled with gunpowder and set off by a detonator, a glass tube filled with acid. When broken, it ignited the main charge of gunpowder. The Russians employed chemical, contact, and electrical command-detonated mines in both the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea. Although some British warships hit and detonated the mines, the mines were too small to do any real damage. With this technology readily available, it is not surprising that the Confederacy utilized it. Southern troops employed land mines in the form of buried artillery shells in the 1862 Peninsula Campaign. At first such devices were considered outside the bounds of civilized warfare, but as the fighting increased in destructiveness prohibitions disappeared. Southerners justified the use of such weapons against an enemy bent on “destroying” the South. Indeed, in April 1862 the Confederate Congress decreed a bounty of 50 percent of the value of any Union warship sunk or destroyed by “any new machine or engine.” Southern strategists believed the mine would be one means of reducing the Union naval advantage. Influential Confederate Navy officer and scientist Matthew Fontaine Maury was an early proponent of the torpedoes and conducted a number of experiments with them. The Confederate Torpedo Bureau, later headed

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by Lieutenant (subsequently commander) Hunter Davidson, was a highly secretive agency; its officers were required to take an oath not to reveal what they knew about the weapons and their means of explosion. Civil War torpedoes were of a variety of types. Either scratch-built or constructed from existing barrels as casings, they were essentially stationary weapons, a buoy held in place at an appropriate distance from the surface by a cable anchored to the sea bottom by a weight. The torpedoes were positioned in rivers or harbors as a defense against Union warships. Civil War torpedoes were set off either by contact or electricity. In the former, detonation occurred when “horns” surrounding the charge were broken, causing a chemical reaction that ignited the charge. In the latter, the charge was touched off by electrical current provided through wires connected to batteries onshore. The first type was more certain to explode, but contact torpedoes did not distinguish their victims and hence were a hazard for friend and foe alike. The second type could only be employed close to shore. More often than not, early torpedoes failed to explode because of faulty detonating equipment or because they became waterlogged. Many were simply swept away by the current. Perhaps the first use of torpedoes in the war came during the February 1862 Union assault on Fort Henry on the Tennessee River. The wife of a Confederate officer inadvertently revealed their presence, and Union sailors then swept the river for the torpedoes and used cutters to bring eight to the surface. These torpedoes were sheet-iron cylinders some 5.5 feet long, pointed at both ends, each containing about 75 pounds of gunpowder. They were fired by contact-type detonators. All of those recovered were waterlogged and harmless. The first victim of a torpedo was the Union ironclad Cairo. It succumbed to a torpedo during the Vicksburg Campaign on December 12, 1862, when it struck a torpedo in the Yazoo River. The first loss of a warship in actual battle to a torpedo was the Union monitor Tecumseh, sunk on August 5, 1864, during the Battle of Mobile Bay. Another dramatic loss occurred on January 15, 1865, when the Union monitor Patapsco was sunk by a large mine or mines a half mile from Fort Sumter. It went down in only about 15 seconds, taking down 62 of its crew. Only 43 were saved. Powder charges in Civil War torpedoes ranged from some 50 pounds to up to a ton. On May 6, 1864, one of the largest of these, detonated electrically from onshore, sank the Union gunboat Commodore Jones in the James River, claiming some 40 lives. It and two other ships were sweeping for mines when the explosion occurred. The Commodore Jones was the first ship sunk by an electrically detonated mine in the history of warfare. A landing party of Union marines and sailors promptly went ashore and found three Confederate positions, each with a Bunsen battery formed of nine zinc cups, with a wire leading from the battery to a torpedo in the river some 200 yards distant. In one of the positions, the Union shore party captured two Confederates of the Submarine Battery Service, waiting to blow their mine should a Union vessel

704 |â•‡Toucey, Isaac

venture over it. The shore party learned that there were many other mines in the river, and when Jeffries Johnson, one of the two Confederates, refused to divulge their location, the Union seamen placed him in the bow of the forward ships as a personal minesweeper, causing him to reveal the desired information. Mines continued to undergo development after the Civil War, reaching new levels of sophistication and numbers in World War I. Spencer C. Tucker See also Cairo, USS; Colt, Samuel; Davidson, Hunter; Fort Donelson, Battle of; Fort Henry, Battle of; James River; Maury, Matthew Fontaine; Mobile Bay, Battle of; Spar Torpedo; Strategy, Confederate Naval; Submarine Battery Service; Submarines; Tecumseh, USS; Vicksburg Campaign; Yazoo River

References Bradford, R. B. History of Torpedo Warfare. Newport, RI: U.S. Torpedo Station, 1882. Hartman, Gregory K., with Scott C. Truver. Weapons That Wait: Mine Warfare in the U.S. Navy. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1991. Lundeberg, Philip K. Samuel Colt’s Submarine Battery: The Secret and the Enigma. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1974. Perry, Milton F. Infernal Machines: The Story of Confederate Submarine and Mine Warfare. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1965. Roland, Alex. Underwater Warfare in the Age of Sail. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978.

Toucey, Isaac Birth Date: November 15, 1792 Death Date: July 30, 1869 Lawyer, U.S. congressman, governor of Connecticut, U.S. attorney general (1848– 1849), U.S. senator (1851–1857), and U.S. secretary of the navy (1857–1861). Born in Newtown, Connecticut, on November 15, 1792, Isaac Toucey completed his common school education and then read for the law. Admitted to the bar in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1818, in 1822 Toucey became the prosecuting attorney of Hartford County, Connecticut, which position he held for 13 years until 1835 when he was elected to Congress as a Democrat. He attracted no particular notice in Washington and failed to win reelection in 1838. Toucey returned to his position as prosecuting attorney in 1842. He made an unsuccessful run for governor in 1845 but, when a deadlock ensued, the state legislature appointed him to that position in 1846. He lost an election bid in 1847. In 1848 President James K. Polk appointed Toucey attorney general of the United States (he was also for a time acting secretary of state), but he served only until 1849. Returning to Connecticut, he was elected to the Connecticut State Senate in 1850 and to the Connecticut House of Representatives in 1852. Elected to

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the U.S. Senate in November 1850, Toucey served in that position from March 1851 to March 1857, this time declining to stand for reelection. As a senator from the North with sympathies for the South, Toucey argued for enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law because it was the law of the land. President James Buchanan (1857–1861), with whom Toucey had served in the Polk administration, appointed him secretary of the navy on March 1, 1857, in large part to secure New England representation in the cabinet as Toucey had no other qualifications for the position. Toucey rejected construction of a large navy, although he did support construction of seven additional light-draft, powerfully armed screw sloops and one side-wheeler, all of which had entered service by 1860. In his last annual report to Congress on the navy in 1860, Toucey called for a “gradual, substantial, and permanent” increase in the size of the navy with all the new ships to be steamers. Toucey also supported Commander John A. Dahlgren’s system of heavy ordnance and sought to improve the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis. As an acknowledged Southern sympathizer, Toucey fully supported Buchanan’s dithering on the issue of Southern secession from the Union. Critics accused him of not having concentrated the ships of the navy in a state of readiness for war. He was also much criticized at the time, and later censured by Congress, for the policy of accepting the resignations of Southern officers who wished to join the Confederate Navy. Under his successor, such individuals were listed as “dismissed.” Toucey remained as secretary until March 6, 1861, when he was replaced by Connecticut political rival Gideon Welles. Returning to Connecticut, Toucey loyally supported the Union cause in the Civil War. Again taking up the practice of law, Toucey died in Hartford, Connecticut, on July 30, 1869. Spencer C. Tucker See also Dahlgren Guns; Naval Academy, United States; Welles, Gideon

Reference Langley, Harold D. “Isaac Toucey.” In American Secretaries of the Navy, 2 vols., edited by Paolo E. Coletta, I:303–318. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1980.

Transports, Quartermaster See Quartermaster Transports

Tredegar Iron Works Rolling mill that produced the bulk of Confederate heavy artillery and armor plate, as well as other iron-based manufactured goods during the Civil War. The Tredegar Iron Works was first established in 1833 by a group of Richmond businessmen led

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The Tredegar Iron Works at Richmond,Virginia, in April 1865. The largest industrial facility in the South in 1861, the Tredegar produced the bulk of the heavy guns and armor plate for the South during the Civil War. (Library of Congress)

by Francis B. Deane. They enlisted the help of an engineer from Tredegar, South Wales, Rhys Davies, who designed and constructed the furnaces and rolling mills that would later become the Tredegar and Belle Isle Works of Richmond. The works was chartered in 1836 and merged with the Virginia Foundry Company in 1837 to become the largest foundry in the South and the third largest in the United States. Former U.S. Army officer Joseph R. Anderson took charge of the company in 1841, setting a precedent for using slave labor along with free workers to man the foundry. The Tredegar was the only major antebellum iron works in the South capable of manufacturing the heaviest guns and railroad ties. At the beginning of the Civil War, Tredegar Iron Works employed 900 men (about 100 were African American slaves). When Virginia seceded from the Union on April 17, 1861, Tredegar became the Confederacy’s most important facility for the manufacture of war materials, finding ready customers in the state governments of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina. By the end of 1861, Tredegar had delivered 56 cannon, 35 heavy guns, 14 field guns, and 7 seacoast mortars. Along with various cannon, the company produced artillery projectiles, torpedoes (naval mines), rails, spikes, train axles, experimental submersible vessels, and armor plating for ironclads, including CSS Virginia. Naval guns designed by Confederate Navy officer John M. Brooke were among Tredegar’s most formidable weapons. The foundry also operated nine canal boats, a sawmill, and a firebrick factory. Anderson also purchased coal mines to help ensure a ready supply of raw materials

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for his furnaces. To clothe his workforce, he built a tannery and shoe factory and smuggled cloth through the Union blockade. Anderson offered to sell or lease the iron works to the Confederate government, but both the War and Navy Departments preferred signing long-term contracts. To meet the Confederacy’s needs, Tredegar operated 24 hours a day, although for almost a month in the late summer of 1861 the mill produced no cannon because of a shortage of pig iron. Toward the end of the war, a combination of factors reduced Tredegar’s output, including a shortage of raw materials, low grain supplies required to feed the draft animals that moved the heavy ordnance, and the freezing over of the James River during the winter of 1864–1865. It is estimated that Tredegar produced 50 percent of all Confederate cannon, some 1,100 pieces, in addition to the other items it manufactured. As the war dragged on and manpower became critical, Anderson came to rely increasingly on slave labor so that by 1864–1865 as much as half of his now 2,500-man workforce were slaves. Union troops occupied Richmond in April 1865 but did not damage the factory. After steel gradually replaced iron, the Tredegar and Belle Isle Works of Richmond closed its operations in 1958. Robert A. Lynn See also Artillery Projectiles, Naval; Brooke, John Mercer; Brooke Guns; Ironclads, Confederate; James River; Richmond, Virginia; Scofield and Markham Gate City Iron Works; Selma Naval Gun Foundry; Shelby Iron Company; Submarines; Torpedoes; Virginia, CSS

References Dew, Charles B. Ironmaker to the Confederacy: Joseph R. Anderson and the Tredegar Iron Works. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1966. Park, Carl D. Ironclad Down: The USS Merrimack–CSS Virginia from Construction to Destruction. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2007.

Trent Affair Start Date: November 1861 End Date: January 1862 Captain Charles Wilkes of the U.S. Navy screw frigate San Jacinto was searching for the Confederate commerce raider Sumter when he learned during the course of a port call at Havana, Cuba, on October 30, 1861, that the two newly appointed Confederate commissioners to Britain, James M. Mason and John Slidell, were scheduled to depart that place on November 7 in the British mail packet Trent. Anticipating that the British ship would use the Bahama Channel, Wilkes put to sea on November 2 and decided to intercept the British ship and seize the two men, taking the position that they qualified as contraband and thus were subject to

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seizure by a U.S. ship. On November 8, 1861, the San Jacinto caught up with the Trent and halted it. Wilkes then forcibly removed Mason and Slidell and sailed for Boston, where they were imprisoned at Fort Warren. As Wilkes no doubt had hoped, much of the North lionized him for this action, but the British government saw it as a clear violation of international law and demanded the immediate release of the Confederate commissioners. Prime Minister Lord Palmerston threatened war if the incident was not resolved to London’s satisfaction, and to make the point he ordered 8,000 British troops to Canada and instructed the Admiralty to prepare for war against the United States. Cooler heads prevailed. In Britain, Benjamin Disraeli urged a generous interpretation of Wilkes’s action, and Prince Albert helped draft the note to Washington so as to allow the U.S. government a graceful escape. Lincoln was furious at Wilkes’s action and stressed the necessity of fighting only one war at a time. The president agreed that both Mason and Slidell would be released, and in January 1862 the two Confederate commissioners were quietly transferred to a British warship off the New England coast. While Lincoln disavowed Wilkes’s action, he issued no formal apology to the British, although Northern leaders could not resist pointing out to London the parallels between the event and Royal Navy impressment practices earlier in the century. Resolution of the crisis again revealed the commonsense approach of Lincoln, who had gone against Northern public opinion in order to maintain the diplomatic isolation of the Confederacy. Spencer C. Tucker See also Fort Warren, Massachusetts; Lincoln, Abraham; Mason, James Murray; Slidell, John; Sumter, CSS; Wilkes, Charles

References Bourne, Kenneth. “British Preparations for War with the North, 1861–1862.” English Historical Review 76(301) (October 1961): 600–632. Ferris, Norman B. The Trent Affair: A Diplomatic Crisis. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1977. Mahin, Dean B. One War at a Time: The International Dimensions of the Civil War. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1999.

Trent’s Reach, Battle of Start Date: January 23, 1865 End Date: January 24, 1865 Major naval encounter between Confederate and Union forces in the James River in Virginia, near the end of the war during January 23–24, 1865. On January 15, 1865, Lieutenant Charles W. Read, commander of the Confederate torpedo boats in the James River, conducted a reconnaissance down the river. Read reported to

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Flag Officer John K. Mitchell, commander of the Confederate James River Squadron, and to Secretary of the Navy Stephen R. Mallory that freshets (recent high water from rains and snow) had carried away Union obstructions at Trent’s Reach designed to pen in the Confederate squadron. Read also reported that most of the Union ships that had been in the river the year before were absent. They had been withdrawn by North Atlantic Blockading Squadron commander Rear Admiral David D. Porter for operations against Fort Fisher and Wilmington, North Carolina. Mallory was elated at the news. He was anxious to see the squadron take the offensive in an effort to destroy City Point, Union lieutenant general Ulysses S. Grant’s supply base for operations against Petersburg and Richmond, after which the squadron could block the James below that point. Mitchell, more concerned about the state of his squadron, was opposed to any precipitous action and asked Mallory for several days to inspect the Union obstructions. He also requested the return of some of his crewmen who had been assigned to man batteries ashore. When Mitchell failed to move promptly, Mallory pressed him to commence offensive action. Mitchell had at his disposal 11 ships, including the 3 most powerful remaining Confederate ironclads: the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Virginia II. Mitchell’s counterpart was U.S. Navy commander William A. Parker, who had assumed command of the 5th Division of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron the previous November. Parker had in the river only 1 ironclad, the powerful double-turreted monitor Onondaga mounting two XV-inch smoothbore Dahlgrens and two 8-inch (150-pounder) rifled Parrott guns, and 8 wooden gunboats: the screw steamer Daylight and side-wheel steamers Eutaw, Hunchback, Massassoit, Miami, William Putnam, and Commodore Barney. Each of these ships, save the Putnam, carried as many or more guns of heavier weight than those of the Confederate ships. Parker could also, if necessary, call on additional ships from the Union blockading squadron 90 miles downstream at Hampton Roads, although it would take them some time to get upriver. On January 21, Brigadier General John Rawlins, Grant’s chief of staff, informed Parker that the Confederates were about to attack, reasoning that with the return of the other Union ironclads from the North Carolina operation all chance of Confederate success on the river would be lost. Parker, mindful of Porter’s orders that he continue aggressive patrolling and not run any risks while he was absent, ignored the warning. Nor did he detach ships to monitor the obstructions. In consequence, the Confederate attack would initially encounter only minimal Union resistance. The Confederate squadron got under way at 6:00 p.m. on January 23, its movement timed so as to reach Trent’s Reach at high water two and a half hours later. Because the James was so shallow and its channel narrow, Mitchell ordered the wooden ships lashed to the ironclads to prevent collisions: the gunboat Hampton and torpedo boat Hornet were secured to the Fredericksburg; the gunboat Beaufort and armed tender Drewry (towing the torpedo boat Wasp) were lashed to the

710 |â•‡Trent’s Reach, Battle of

Richmond; and the gunboats Nansemond and Torpedo (towing the torpedo boat Scorpion) were secured to the Virginia II. Aided by coded stakes, the ships of the squadron successfully negotiated a line of 36 recently installed Confederate torpedoes (naval mines) and at about 8:00 p.m. arrived at the Union battery at Fort Brady on Signal Hill. The ships were completely blacked out, their guns withdrawn and gun shutters closed, but it was impossible to disguise their presence. The alarm given, the Union battery opened up at short range with about 25 shots, including from 6.4-inch (100-pounder) Parrott rifled guns. Return fire from the ships disabled the leftmost of the Union Parrotts; this, and the poor design of the fort, prevented the battery from firing on the ships after they had passed downriver. The exchange of fire at Fort Brady alerted the men at Union batteries Wilcox, Parsons, Spotford, and Sawyer overlooking Trent’s Reach of the approach of the Confederate ships. Before daylight they had fired some 100 rounds in the darkness into the areas of the obstructions hoping to hit the Confederate ships. Navigating the shallow James was tricky in the best of circumstances and the Torpedo, lashed to the Virginia II, ran aground and it was some time before it was freed, its spar torpedo having been destroyed. The lead Confederate ships reached the western end of Trent’s Reach at about 9:00 p.m., but they were now under artillery fire as well as a near-constant rain of Union small-arms fire from the shore. The pilot from the Virginia II went forward with Lieutenant Read in the Scorpion but may have been unnerved by the hail of small-arms fire when he declared that the channel was not open. Read reported to Mitchell that the obstructions could be removed, however. Mitchell then came forward. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Francis E. Shepperd, commander of the Fredericksburg, impetuously took his ship through the obstructions in the north side of the channel, but in the process the ship struck an object that opened a leak. The ironclad proceeded nonetheless and anchored 100 yards below the entrance to Dutch Gap Canal, beyond the range of the Union batteries. The gunboat Hampton also passed through the obstructions and joined it. They then waited in vain for the other ships of the squadron to join them for the attack on City Point. The Confederate plan had suffered a fatal blow. On returning to the Virginia II, Mitchell discovered that his most powerful ship had grounded. Commander John M. Kell, commander of the Richmond, had dispatched the Nansemond and Beaufort to assist. They worked for some three hours trying to free the Virginia II, to no avail. Returning from the effort, the Drewry also grounded. The Scorpion also ran aground, as did the Hornet temporarily. Declaring that the squadron would not get through the obstructions that night, Mitchell reluctantly recalled the Fredericksburg and Hampton. Dawn revealed the stranded Confederate ships within easy range of the Union shore batteries. Recognizing the vulnerability of the wooden Drewry, Kell ordered

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it abandoned. Just after its crew had evacuated, the Drewry blew up at 7:10 a.m. when a Union mortar shell penetrated its magazine and exploded. The shock from the blast, heard by Grant at City Point 18 miles distant, caused the Scorpion to drift downstream out of control, killing two men and washing overboard four others. The torpedo boat then fell into Union hands. Grant was furious. Where were Parker and his flotilla? The general communicated his displeasure directly with Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gustavus V. Fox, who removed Parker from command late on January 24. Fox also arranged for the powerful Union ironclad New Ironsides, monitor Saugus, and the (former Confederate) ironclad Atlanta to proceed upriver, but they would not arrive there in time to participate in the action. Parker said later that he had withdrawn his ships downriver to secure more room for the Onondaga to maneuver and to keep his ships safe from Confederate shore battery fire. Meanwhile, both Confederate ships had taken a large number of hits from the Union guns ashore (the number of shots striking the Richmond is unknown, but the Virginia II alone absorbed 70 hits) and had sustained some damage and eight men wounded. At 10:45 a.m., however, the Virginia II floated free and prepared to head upriver. At this point, Parker arrived with the Onondaga, the gunboats Hunchback and Massassoit, and the torpedo boat Spuyten Duyvil at Trent’s Reach. As the Virginia II departed, it took two direct hits from the Onondaga’s 15-inch guns, causing considerable damage to its stern section and killing one crewman and wounding two others. It was indeed fortunate for the Confederates that the Onondaga had not arrived earlier. Gunners at the Confederate battery Dantzler managed to hit the Massassoit, wounding five of its crew. Despite the loss of two of his ships and the damage to the others, Mitchell ordered another attempt to pass the obstructions at 9:00 p.m. Again moving into Trent’s Reach toward the barrier, the Confederate ships encountered what Mitchell described as a “brilliant Drummond Light.” It not only illuminated the Confederate ships but blinded the pilots. An hour after it had begun, Mitchell called off the effort, and the Confederate ships again withdrew, this time to Chaffin’s Bluff. This last clash of the war between ironclads was thus a Union victory; Grant’s supply line remained secure. There was considerable displeasure on both sides over what each regarded as a lost opportunity. On February 18, Mitchell was also removed from command. Spencer C. Tucker See also City Point, Virginia; Fort Fisher Campaign; Fox, Gustavus Vasa; Ironclads, Confederate; Ironclads, Union; James River; James River Squadron, CSA; Kell, John McIntosh; Mallory, Stephen Russell; Mitchell, John Kirkwood; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Porter, David Dixon; Read, Charles William; Richmond, CSS; Riverine Warfare; Spar Torpedo; Torpedoes

712 |â•‡Tucker, John Randolph

References Coski, John M. Capital Navy: The Men, Ships and Operations of the James River Squadron. Campbell, CA: Savas, 1996. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 11. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1900.

Tucker, John Randolph Birth Date: January 31, 1812 Death Date: June 12, 1883 Confederate Navy officer. Born in Alexandria, Virginia, on January 31, 1812, John Randolph Tucker received a warrant as a midshipman in the U.S. Navy on June 1, 1826. He was promoted to passed midshipman on June 10, 1833, and to lieutenant on December 20, 1837. During the Mexican-American War, Tucker commanded the bomb brig Stromboli. Tucker was promoted to commander on September 14, 1855. He assumed command of the Pennsylvania, at one point a ship of the line and the world’s most powerful warship but then a receiving ship at the Norfolk (Gosport) Navy Yard. He next served as ordnance officer at the Norfolk Yard. With the beginning of the Civil War, Tucker resigned from the U.S. Navy on April 18, 1861, and shortly thereafter was commissioned a commander in the Virginia Navy. In June 1861, this rank transferred to the Confederate Navy. Tucker took command of the side-wheel steamer Patrick Henry in the James River Squadron. The Patrick Henry participated in skirmishes with U.S. Navy ships at Newport News, Virginia, in September 1861, and in the Battle of Hampton Roads on March 8–9, 1862. On May 15, Tucker fought in the First Battle of Drewry’s Bluff, Virginia, with crewmen from the Confederate ships Patrick Henry, Jamestown, and Virginia manning Confederate shore batteries. Tucker remained ashore until July 1862, when he was assigned to command the newly completed ironclad ram CSS Chicora at Charleston, South Carolina. On January 31, 1863, the Chicora and a second ironclad ram, CSS Palmetto State, attacked the wooden steamers of the U.S. Navy South Atlantic Blockading Squadron off Charleston Harbor. In the ensuing battle, the two Confederate ironclads inflicted considerable damage. The Chicora nearly sank the large Union sidewheeler wooden steamer Keystone State. It hit the Union ship 10 times, disabled its machinery, and set it on fire. The Keystone State suffered casualties of a quarter of its crew: 20 dead and a like number wounded. Other Union ships then came up, and one of them towed the Keystone State to safety. The arrival of the other Union

Turner,Thomasâ•‡ | 713

warships, especially the steam sloop Housatonic, forced the two Confederate ironclads to break off their attack and return to Charleston. In March 1863, Tucker became flag officer of the Charleston Squadron. He commanded the Chicora and Palmetto State when Union forces launched their unsuccessful naval assault of April 7, 1863. For the remainder of the war, Tucker utilized torpedoes (mines) and small, spar torpedo–equipped vessels known as Davids to strike at the blockading force. Tucker remained at Charleston until February 18, 1865, when Confederate forces abandoned the city. He then commanded Confederate shore batteries at Drewry’s Bluff, Virginia, until his unit surrendered at Saylor’s Creek, Virginia, on April 16, 1865. After the war, Tucker went to Peru in June 1866 and served as a rear admiral in the Peruvian Navy until March 1867. He later led an expedition that charted the upper Amazon. Tucker died in Petersburg, Virginia, on June 12, 1883. Charles James Wexler See also Charleston, South Carolina; Charleston, South Carolina, CSA Navy Attack on U.S. Navy Blockaders; Charleston, South Carolina, Du Pont’s Attack on; Davids, CSS; Drewry’s Bluff, First Battle of; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Housatonic, USS; Ironclads, Confederate; James River; James River Squadron, CSA; Newport News, Virginia; Norfolk Navy Yard; Receiving Ship; Riverine Warfare; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Spar Torpedo; Torpedoes

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Register of Officers of the Confederate States Navy, 1861–1865: As Compiled and Revised by the Office of Naval Records and Library, United States Navy Department, 1931, from All Available Data. With a new introduction by John M. Carroll. Mattituck, NY: J. M. Carroll, 1981. [Originally published by the Naval Record and Library, U.S. Navy Department, in 1898 and revised in 1931.] Rochelle, James Henry. Life of Rear Admiral John Randolph Tucker. Washington, DC: Neale, 1903. Werlich, David P. Admiral of the Amazon: John Randolph Tucker, His Confederate Colleagues, and Peru. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1990.

Turner, Thomas Birth Date: December 23, 1808 Death Date: March 24, 1883 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Virginia on December 23, 1808, Thomas Turner received a midshipman’s warrant in the navy on April 1, 1825. He was promoted to passed midshipman on June 4, 1831; to lieutenant on December 22, 1835; and to

714 |â•‡ Tyler, USS

commander on September 14, 1855. At the beginning of 1861, Turner had been in the navy for 35 years: some 18 years in sea service, 9 years in assignments ashore, and 7 years awaiting orders in a navy with too many officers for available billets. Remaining loyal to the Union despite the secession of his native state, Turner had charge of naval recruitment at Philadelphia until September 1861 when he was assigned to the Philadelphia Navy Yard for a year. Promoted to captain on July 16, 1862, Turner assumed command of the new ironclad USS New Ironsides. Initially assigned to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, he was its senior officer during Rear Admiral Samuel Phillip Lee’s absence that October and November. Promoted to commodore on December 13, 1862, in early January 1863 Turner was ordered to join the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron off Charleston, where the New Ironsides rendered highly effective service. The ironclad served as Rear Admiral Samuel F. Du Pont’s flagship during the attack on Charleston on April 7. Turner was replaced as commander of the New Ironsides by Commodore Stephen C. Rowan on June 29, possibly because his views on operations against Charleston closely coincided with those of Du Pont, who was also replaced. Turner then served on special duty in Washington, D.C., through the end of the Civil War. He was then at the Philadelphia Navy Yard until June 1868. Promoted to rear admiral on May 27, 1868, Turner commanded the Home Squadron from July 1868 to September 1870. Placed on the retired list on April 21, 1870, Turner died in Glen Mills, Pennsylvania, on March 24, 1883. Spencer C. Tucker See also Charleston, South Carolina, Du Pont’s Attack on; Du Pont, Samuel Francis; Lee, Samuel Phillips; New Ironsides, USS; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Philadelphia Navy Yard; Rowan, Stephen Clegg; Seamen, Recruitment of; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron


Tyler, USS One of the first three gunboat conversions for employment on western waters during the Civil War. Purchased by Commander John Rodgers in June 1861 and originally named the A. O. Tyler, it was commissioned in August 1861. It and the Lexington and Conestoga were converted into warships at Louisville, Kentucky, and formed the nucleus of the Western Gunboat Flotilla. All three were reinforced to enable them to carry heavy guns, and five-inch-thick oak was installed to

Tyler, USSâ•‡ | 715

provide protection against rifle fire. This led to them being called timberclads. The Tyler was 180 feet long with a beam of 45 feet, four inches and draft of 6 feet. It displaced 420 tons. The Tyler supported shore actions at Belmont, Missouri (November 7, 1861), and was present in the action at Fort Henry on the Tennessee River (February 6, 1862) and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland (February 14, 1862). In company with the Lexington, the Tyler provided most effective support in the Battle of Shiloh (April 6–7, 1862). It took part in the capture of Island Number 10 (February–April 1862) and in the Vicksburg Campaign, where it fought against the Confederate ironclad Arkansas in July 1863. The Tyler also assisted in the capture of Fort Hindman, Arkansas (January 9–11, 1863), and participated in antiguerrilla missions on the White River and at Helena, Arkansas. The Tyler’s last duty was to assist in retrieving survivors from the Sultana disaster on April 27, 1865. It was sold on August 17, 1865. Gary D. Joiner See also Arkansas, CSS; Belmont, Battle of; Conestoga, USS; Fort Donelson, Battle of; Fort Henry, Battle of; Fort Hindman, Battle of; Lexington, USS; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Phelps’s Raid; Pittsburg Landing; Red River Campaign; Riverine Warfare; Rodgers, John; Sultana Disaster; Timberclads; Vicksburg Campaign

References Joiner, Gary D. Mr. Lincoln’s Brown Water Navy: The Mississippi Squadron. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007. Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. Smith, Myron J., Jr. The Timberclads in the Civil War: The Lexington, Conestoga and Tyler on the Western Waters. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008. Tucker, Spencer C. Andrew Foote: Civil War Admiral on Western Waters. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000.


U Underwriter, USS, Confederate Expedition against Start Date: February 1, 1864 End Date: February 2, 1864 Organized by Confederate commander John Taylor Wood on February 1, 1864, the expedition against the Union steamer Underwriter in the Neuse River near New Bern, North Carolina, was part of a larger Confederate effort to retake that city from occupying Union forces. Wood’s force consisted of 220 enlisted sailors and marines, as well as 33 officers. These forces came to Kinston, North Carolina, from areas such as Wilmington Station, Charleston Station, the Savannah Squadron, and the James River Squadron. Divided into two detachments comprising 12 boats and two launches, the expedition descended the Neuse River and rendezvoused at Bachelor’s Creek, just upstream from New Bern. Wood, his executive officer Lieutenant Benjamin Loyall, and a small crew of experienced men reconnoitered the area after nightfall on February 1, 1864, and selected the Underwriter as their target. Anchored in the river alone, adjacent to the Union batteries of Fort Stephenson, the Underwriter was a side-wheeler steam warship 186 feet in length, 35 feet in beam, and weighing 325 tons. It was armed with two 8-inch guns, a 30-pounder rifle, and a 12-pounder boat howitzer and was commanded by Acting Master Jacob Westervelt. At 2:30 a.m. on February 2, 1864, the attack commenced with Wood’s detachment striking forward of the Underwriter’s wheel. Loyall’s detachment struck. Confederate marines stationed in each boat functioned as sharpshooters, while the two launches were kept in a reserve role. Sailors on the Underwriter spotted the raiders and opened fire; however, after just a few minutes of fierce hand-to-hand combat, the Confederates gained control of the Union warship. Confederate engineers found no steam in the Underwriter’s boilers and estimated that it would be as much as an hour before the ship could be moved. Wood did not have time to wait, as Union batteries at Fort Stephenson had already opened fire on the Confederate party. Wood then gave the order to set fire to the ship. The Confederates then boarded their boats and rowed to safety upriver. The Underwriter exploded when the fire reached its magazine. Upon their return to Kinston, most of the Confederate sailors returned to their previous duty stations, but a few of the officers were retained to take new positions on board the Confederate ironclad Neuse; Loyall was given command. While the overall attack on New Bern failed, the Confederates had demonstrated that the 717

718 |â•‡ Underwriter, USS, Confederate Expedition against

occupying Union forces in eastern North Carolina were still vulnerable to attack in the spring of 1864. Andrew Duppstadt See also Amphibious Warfare; James River Squadron, CSA; Loyall, Benjamin Pollard; Marine Corps, CSA; Neuse, CSS; New Bern, North Carolina, Confederate Raid on; Savannah River Squadron; Wood, John Taylor

References Campbell, R. Thomas. Storm over Carolina: The Confederate Navy’s Struggle for Eastern North Carolina. Nashville: Cumberland House, 2005. Conrad, Daniel B. “Capture of the USS Underwriter in the Neuse off Newbern, NC, February 1864.” Southern Historical Society Papers 19 (1891): 93–100. Loyall, B. P. “Capture of the Underwriter, New Bern, 2 February 1864.” In Histories of Several Regiments and Battalions from North Carolina in the Great War, 1861–65, Vol. 5, edited by Walter Clark, 325–333. Raleigh, NC: E. M. Uzzell, Printer and Binder, 1901. Shingleton, Royce Gordon. John Taylor Wood: Sea Ghost of the Confederacy. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1979.

V Van Brunt, Gershom Jaques Birth Date: August 28, 1798 Death Date: December 17, 1863 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Monmouth County, New Jersey, on August 28, 1798, Gershom J. Van Brunt received a midshipman’s warrant on January 1, 1818. Van Brunt served in the West India Squadron fighting piracy in the Caribbean during 1823–1824. He was promoted to lieutenant on March 3, 1827, and to commander on May 19, 1846. During the Mexican-American War, Van Brunt commanded the bomb brig Etna and took part in operations up the Tuxpan River in April 1847. On the departure of most of the U.S. Navy ships, Commodore Matthew C. Perry left Van Brunt in command of the area. Following the U.S. capture of Tabasco on June 16, 1847, Perry placed Van Brunt in command of that port. With U.S. casualties from yellow fever and continued Mexican attacks, Perry decided to evacuate Tabasco, which was completed on July 22. Perry then named Van Brunt commanding officer of the port of Frontera, leaving him the Etna, screw steamer Scourge, and schooner Bonita with instructions to cut all trade with Tabasco. Following the war, Van Brunt was a member of the commission that surveyed the borders of California. Promoted to captain on September 14, 1855, at the beginning of 1861 Van Brunt had been in the navy for 42 years: some 13 years of sea service, 14 years of assignments ashore, and 14 years awaiting orders in a navy with too many officers for available assignments. In May 1861, Van Brunt assumed command of the screw frigate Minnesota in the Atlantic Blockading Squadron. He took part in the operation that captured Hatteras Inlet, North Carolina, in August 1861, and then remained in Hampton Roads with the part of the squadron that became the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron on blockade duty. Van Brunt was with the Minnesota when it ran aground trying to escape the Confederate ironclad Virginia in the initial day of fighting in the Battle of Hampton Roads (March 8–9, 1862). He vowed to fight his ship to the end and never surrender it. That proved unnecessary with the arrival of the U.S. ironclad Monitor on the evening of March 8 and its assignment to protect the flagship. This decision led to the battle between the Virginia and Monitor on March 9. Assigned to special duty in August 1862, Van Brunt was promoted to comÂ� modore on July 16, 1862. Shifted to the retired list by the end of 1862, Van Brunt 719

720 |â•‡ Vanderbilt, USS

was then awaiting orders. Van Brunt died in Dedham, Massachusetts, on December 17, 1863. Spencer C. Tucker See also Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Hatteras Inlet, Union Assault on; Minnesota, USS; Monitor, USS; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Virginia, CSS


Vanderbilt, USS U.S. Navy side-wheeler steamer. Built in New York by the firm of Simonson, the Vanderbilt was launched on December 10, 1857. One of the largest ships ever taken over by the navy for blockade duty during the Civil War, the ship was 1,770 tons and 250 feet in overall length, 38 feet, 6 inches in beam, and 27 feet in depth with a draft of 21 feet, 6 inches. It had a wood hull and two funnels inside of two masts. Very fast, the steamer could make 14 knots. It had a crew complement of 209 men and was armed with two 6.4-inch (80-pounder) Parrott rifled guns, twelve IX-inch Dahlgren smoothbores, and one 3.4-inch (12-pounder) rifled Dahlgren boat howitzer. Built as a passenger liner, the Vanderbilt had entered service at the end of 1857 with the Vanderbilt Line. With the beginning of the Civil War, Cornelius Vanderbilt presented the ship to the U.S. government in 1861, and it was converted to naval use and commissioned on September 2, 1862. During 1863–1864 the Vanderbilt was employed in the search for the Confederate commerce raider Alabama. Acting Rear Admiral Charles Wilkes, commander of the West Indian Squadron (created specifically to track down the Alabama and another Confederate commerce raider, the Florida), retained the Vanderbilt in the West Indies as his flagship. Had it been operating with the screw sloop Mohican, there is a good chance that they would have encountered one or both of the raiders. The Mohican itself only missed the Confederate cruisers in several locations by a few days. Wilkes, however, seemed more interested in capturing blockade-runners for their prize money than hunting the Alabama. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles relieved him of command of the West Indian Squadron for “wholly inexcusable” misconduct in holding the Vanderbilt. In early September, the Vanderbilt barely missed catching the Alabama

Vicksburg, Mississippi, Mississippi Squadron Passage ofâ•‡ | 721

off South Africa in a week of cat and mouse. Engine problems forced the Vanderbilt to give up the chase, however. The Vanderbilt later took part in the two attacks on Fort Fisher during December 24–25, 1864, and January 13–15, 1865. During the course of the war, the Vanderbilt took three prizes. During 1865–1867, the Vanderbilt served in the Pacific Squadron. Decommissioned on May 24, 1867, the Vanderbilt was sold on April 1, 1873, at Mare Island, California. Spencer C. Tucker See also Alabama, CSS; Blockade-Runners; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Florida, CSS; Fort Fisher Campaign; Welles, Gideon; Wilkes, Charles

References Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. Tucker, Spencer C. Raphael Semmes and the Alabama. Abilene, TX: McWhiney Foundation Press, 1996. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. II, Vol. 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1921.

Vicksburg, Mississippi, Mississippi Squadron Passage of Event Date: April 16, 1863 By late March 1863, Major General Ulysses S. Grant, commanding the U.S. Army of the Tennessee, and Rear Admiral David D. Porter, commanding the U.S. Navy Mississippi Squadron, had attempted several different operations to realize a principal war aim of capturing the Confederate bastion of Vicksburg, Mississippi, and splitting the Confederacy in two. None had been successful. At the end of March, Grant met with Brigadier General William T. Sherman and Porter aboard the latter’s headquarters steamer the ironclad Benton at Milliken’s Bend to consider options. With winter past, additional land options were possible, including an earlier plan now made feasible by the receding river waters. This involved marching Union troops down the Louisiana (western) side of the Mississippi south of Vicksburg to New Carthage. Porter’s ships would then run past Vicksburg and be able to ferry Grant’s men across the river to Grand Gulf on the Mississippi side. This would allow Union troops to approach Vicksburg from the south. The plan was fraught with risk, but Grant was determined to try. On March 29, Grant left his base and began moving his troops south down the Louisiana shore. It was difficult going. Many areas were still flooded, necessitating the laying of log roads for the wagon trains. Meanwhile, Porter prepared for the dangerous run past the Vicksburg batteries. His crews did what they could,

722 |â•‡Vicksburg, Mississippi, Mississippi Squadron Passage of

piling logs and baled hay around their ships’ vitals. For additional protection, each ship had a coal barge lashed to its side. Porter ordered that the ships proceed 50 yards apart with no lights showing and gun ports covered until ready to fire. To muffle sound, when the ships approached the Vicksburg batteries, exhausts were to be vented into the paddle wheels. Should a vessel become disabled, it was to be scuttled and destroyed. The squadron got under way at 7:00 p.m. on April 16, with Grant observing the scene from a navy tug. The flagship Benton led with the tug Ivy lashed to its side. The ironclad Lafayette followed with the gunboat General Price alongside, then the ironclads Louisville, Mound City, Pittsburg, and Carondelet, three army transports, and the side-wheeler ironclad Tuscumbia placed in the van to make certain the army transports continued on course. For a time it looked as if the ships might make it through unscathed, but Confederate pickets gave the alarm, and soon prepared bonfires were blazing onshore. To provide additional illumination, the Confederates also fired some houses on the Louisiana shore, despite the presence there of Union troops. When the shore batteries opened up at 11:16 p.m., the Union ships replied, maintaining a fierce fire. Two of the transports did attempt to return upriver, but the Tuscumbia blocked them. Although all Union ships were struck, some half dozen or more times, only the transport Henry Clay sustained fatal injury. Soon a blazing wreck, it drifted downriver before sinking. Surprisingly, all its crew members were saved. The Lafayette was also hard hit, but the Tuscumbia took it in tow. Remarkably, in an action extending over two and a half hours, the total Union toll was only 12 men wounded. In the exchange, the city of Vicksburg had suffered damage and one Confederate gun had burst, killing 2 men and wounding another 6. One by one, the Union ships arrived at New Carthage, Louisiana. Other Union ships subsequently also made the passage. A few days later, six transports with barges with supplies floated past Vicksburg, and only one, the Tygress, was lost. With New Carthage proving untenable, Grant consolidated his forces at Hard Times, Louisiana. Porter and Grant hoped to cross at Grand Gulf on the east bank, 25 miles south of Vicksburg. Porter now prepared to attack the Confederate defenses there. Spencer C. Tucker See also Benton, USS; Carondelet, USS; Grand Gulf, Battle of; Louisville, USS; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Mound City, USS; Pittsburg, USS; Porter, David Dixon; Riverine Warfare; Vicksburg Campaign

References Arnold, James R. Grant Wins the War: Decision at Vicksburg. New York: Wiley, 1997. Ballard, Michael B. Vicksburg: The Campaign That Opened the Mississippi. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. Martin, David. The Vicksburg Campaign: April 1862–July 1863. Conshohocken, PA: Combined Books, 1994.

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U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 24. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1911.

Vicksburg, Mississippi, West Gulf Squadron Passage of Event Date: June 28, 1862 Under orders from U.S. secretary of the navy Gideon Welles and Assistant Secretary Gustavus V. Fox and with President Abraham Lincoln’s express demand that the Mississippi River be cleared, in late June 1862 West Gulf Blockading Squadron commander Flag Officer David G. Farragut made yet another attempt against Vicksburg, this time in conjunction with Flag Officer Charles H. Davis’s Mississippi River Flotilla, which was to come down the river from the north. This time also, Farragut brought along Captain David D. Porter’s flotilla of 12 mortar boats, recalled from Ship Island. Commanding about 3,000 men, U.S. Army brigadier general Thomas Williams was then supervising the digging of a canal across the mile-wide peninsula formed by the U-shaped bend in the river on which Vicksburg was located. The hope was that, once completed, this canal from Young’s Point would cause the Mississippi to bypass Vicksburg beyond the range of many of its land batteries. To assist Farragut’s passage, Williams positioned an artillery battery on the riverbank opposite the main Confederate upper forts in the hopes of distracting them during Farragut’s passage, but the Union Army’s guns actually accomplished little against the Confederate artillery on the high bluffs, which could carry out plunging fire. One Union soldier was killed in the exchange of fire. With the mortar flotilla positioned on both sides of the river, the Union ships began their passage at 4:00 a.m. on June 28. The squadron included the steam sloops Richmond, Hartford, and Brooklyn, and the gunboats Oneida, Iroquois, Wissahickon, Sciota, Winona, Pinola, Octorara, Westfield, Clifton, Jackson, Harriet Lane, Owasco, Kennebec, and Katahdin. Fire was opened almost immediately, and a three-mile-long exchange between the ships and the Confederate batteries on the bluffs and along the river bank ensued. By 6:00 a.m., the first of Farragut’s ships had passed through the gauntlet of Confederate fire to join Lieutenant Colonel Alfred W. Ellet’s Ram Fleet, the leading element of Davis’s flotilla that had come down river from Memphis, Tennessee. The sloop Brooklyn and the accompanying gunboats Kennebec and Katahdin did not pass through, however. Captain Thomas Craven explained to Farragut that his ship had dueled with the shore batteries for two and a half hours but had been unable to silence the guns on the bluffs and that he assumed he had the discretionary authority under Farragut’s orders to withdraw. Farragut censured Craven for his decision and Craven asked to be detached from his command to plead his case in Washington, which was granted.

724 |â•‡Vicksburg Campaign

Farragut had not lost a ship, but his squadron did sustain some damage and the operation claimed some 10 killed and 30 wounded; Porter’s mortar flotilla suffered 8 killed and 10–12 wounded. Although Farragut reported that his ships had for a time largely silenced the Confederate guns, in fact their defenses were largely undamaged. Brigadier General Martin L. Smith reported from Vicksburg that not a single Confederate gun had been lost in the exchange. While Farragut’s dash past Vicksburg proved that the Union ships could pass back and forth at relatively little cost, he was now more convinced than ever that taking Vicksburg was a matter for ground troops. That same day he sent a message to Major General Henry Halleck at Corinth via Lieutenant Colonel Ellet informing the Union theater commander that while he was now above Vicksburg with most of his ships, the Confederates had some 8,000–10,000 ground troops in place, a force sufficient to prevent the relatively small number of Union troops from landing. Farragut concluded, “My orders, general, are to clear the river. This I find impossible without your assistance. Can you aid me in this matter to carry out the order of the President?” Farragut’s request did not seem unreasonable, given that Halleck commanded some 120,000 men, but Halleck replied, “The scattered and weakened condition of my troops renders it impossible for me at the present to detach any troops to cooperate with you on Vicksburg.” Taking the Confederate Gibraltar would have to wait. Spencer C. Tucker See also Brooklyn, USS; Craven, Thomas Tingey; Davis, Charles Henry; Ellet, Alfred Washington; Farragut, David Glasgow; Fox, Gustavus Vasa; Hartford, USS; Lincoln, Abraham; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Mortar Boats; Porter, David Dixon; Richmond, USS; Riverine Warfare; Ship Island, Mississippi; Vicksburg Campaign; Welles, Gideon; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Ballard, Michael B. Vicksburg: The Campaign That Opened the Mississippi. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 18. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1904.

Vicksburg Campaign Start Date: December 1862 End Date: July 1863 Capture of the great Confederate bastion at Vicksburg was critical to Union control of the Mississippi River, which would split off the Trans-Mississippi West from the remainder of the Confederacy. President Abraham Lincoln called taking

Vicksburg Campaignâ•‡ | 725

Vicksburg “the key” to that effort. Securing the “Confederate Gibraltar” would be difficult. The city was situated on a sharp hairpin turn in the river where ships had to slow and were exposed to land fire from guns at the water’s edge and batteries situated on high bluffs some 200 feet above river level. It was obvious early on that gunboats alone could not take Vicksburg; it would require a combined army-navy operation. By early June 1862, Flag Officer Charles H. Davis’s northern Union flotilla had secured the upper Mississippi. Defeat of the Confederate River Defense Fleet at Memphis opened the great river all the way to Vicksburg. At the same time, Union forces were working their way north from the river’s mouth. Flag Officer David G. Farragut’s West Gulf Blockading Squadron took New Orleans in April and advanced north. Pursuant to his orders, Farragut moved to Vicksburg, concentrating his ships just south of the city. Their defenses strengthened by the arrival of both heavy guns and troops evacuated from New Orleans and other points on the Mississippi, on May 18 Confederate authorities in Vicksburg confidently rejected Farragut’s surrender demand. Farragut correctly determined that his resources were totally inadequate. He cited not only heavy Confederate guns on the bluffs “so elevated that our fire will not be felt by them” but the presence there of several thousand Confederate soldiers and the ability to bring in substantial reinforcements by rail from Jackson. Even if the Union ships could have shelled Vicksburg into submission, Farragut had only about 1,400–1,500 men under Brigadier General Thomas Williams, which would have been totally insufficient to hold the city. On May 30, Farragut departed for New Orleans with most of his ships, leaving behind only a half dozen gunboats. Under orders from Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles and Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gustavus V. Fox and operating under President Lincoln’s express demand that the river be cleared, Farragut made yet another attempt against Vicksburg in late June in conjunction with Davis’s Mississippi River Flotilla. This time Farragut brought along Captain David D. Porter’s mortar boats, recalled from Ship Island. General Williams and some 3,000 Union troops positioned an artillery battery on the riverbank opposite the main Confederate upper forts to distract them during Farragut’s passage, but the Union guns achieved little against the Confederate artillery on the bluffs. Supported by the mortar boats, Farragut’s ships proceeded upriver, trading fire with Vicksburg in a 2.5-hour passage on June 28. All of the ships passed through the gauntlet of Confederate fire at a cost of 7 killed and 30 wounded. Porter’s mortar squadron sustained an additional 8 killed and 10–12 wounded. The forts, however, were little damaged. While Farragut had proved that Union ships could pass back and forth at relatively little cost, he was now more convinced than ever that taking Vicksburg was a matter for ground troops. That same day, he sent a message to Major General


Henry W. Halleck, commander of the Union Department of the Missouri, informing him of events and noting that the Confederates had some 8,000–10,000 ground troops in place, a force sufficient to prevent the relatively small number of Union troops with him from landing. Farragut requested that Halleck send reinforcements to fulfill Lincoln’s order, a reasonable request as Halleck then commanded some 120,000 men, but Halleck replied that he had none to spare.


On July 1, Farragut linked up with Davis below the Yazoo River about a dozen miles above Vicksburg. Union troops then began digging a canal across the milewide peninsula formed by the U-shaped bend in the river on which Vicksburg was located. If completed, this canal would cause the Mississippi to bypass Vicksburg beyond the range of many of its land batteries. But with half his crews sick and the river falling, Farragut was fearful of being trapped with his big ships and the partially completed project was abandoned. Before Farragut could depart, however, the Confederates sent out the ironclad Arkansas. Ordered to proceed to Vicksburg to bolster its defenses, on July 15 the powerful Arkansas exited the Yazoo River, a tributary of the Mississippi that flows into it just north of Vicksburg, then battered its way unscathed through the fire of the ships of both Union squadrons to anchor at Vicksburg. The same evening, Farragut departed for Baton Rouge. Farragut hoped to destroy the Arkansas in passing Vicksburg again, but although Union shot damaged the ironclad, it remained afloat. Several subsequent attempts by Davis to destroy the Arkansas, including shelling by mortar boats, also failed, and he then also departed with his ships north to Helena, Arkansas. In October 1862, Rear Admiral David D. Porter took command of the northern Union flotilla from Davis. It now became the Mississippi Squadron. Porter established a remarkably effective command relationship with his Union army counterpart, Major General Ulysses S. Grant, and Grant’s subordinate Brigadier General William T. Sherman. The three men were determined to capture Vicksburg. Protecting the northern approaches to Vicksburg was a 60-mile-wide quagmire of swamps, bayous, and low-lying land known as the Yazoo Delta, while just north of the city lay the natural defensive line of the 80- to 100-foot Chickasaw Bluffs. The city was most vulnerable from the south and east, but these were far removed from Grant’s supply base at Memphis. Grant now tested the north and east approaches, moving south from his advanced base at Holly Springs along the Mississippi Central Railroad. He hoped to draw out the bulk of Confederate lieutenant general John C. Pemberton’s 40,000-man Army of Mississippi now defending Vicksburg, while at the same time sending Sherman and 32,000 men down the Mississippi River in transports covered by Porter’s gunboats to stage a surprise attack on the few defenders who remained at the city. Meanwhile, on December 11, Porter sent Commander Henry Walke and a Union flotilla up the Yazoo. On December 12, the ironclad Cairo was sunk by two Confederate torpedoes (mines) in that river. The farther Grant moved south, the more vulnerable were his lines of communication. Confederate brigadier general Nathan Bedford Forrest led cavalry attacks that threatened these all the way back to Columbus, Kentucky. Forrest tore up some 50 miles of track, seized considerable quantities of military supplies, and inflicted some 2,000 Union casualties. On December 20, however, an even worse calamity befell Grant. As Porter prepared to depart Memphis with Sherman’s troops down the Mississippi and with Grant having drawn off some 20,000 Vicksburg defenders


and engaging them outside the town of Granada, Mississippi, Major General Earl Van Dorn and 3,500 Confederate cavalry captured Grant’s supply base at Holly Springs held by 1,500 Union troops. Van Dorn destroyed vast stocks of food and supplies, forcing Grant to end his advance and retrace his steps to Grand Junction, Tennessee. Grant tried to get word to Sherman, but the telegraph lines were disabled and the message did not get through. Porter and Sherman, therefore, moved south from Memphis as scheduled on December 20, stopping at Helena, Arkansas, the next day to gather additional forces that brought total Union troop strength up to about 30,000 men. On December 23, the Union flotilla of warships and troop transports entered the Yazoo. Three days later, about 10 miles from the river mouth, three of the four Union divisions disembarked. Although they were now only about six miles north of Vicksburg itself, before Sherman’s men could assault the Confederate positions on the Chickasaw Bluffs they would first have to cross a morass of marshy low ground, bayous, swamps, thick forest, and felled trees. Confederate artillery covered the few approach roads or causeways, and heavy rains made an already difficult situation far worse. As Sherman’s men slowly worked their way toward the bluffs under covering fire from the Union ships in the river, the defenders doubled in number, from 6,000 to 12,000 men. A Union gunboat foray upriver to Haynes’ Bluff failed to draw off the defenders. In heavy fighting at Chickasaw Bluffs on December 29, Sherman’s forces were rebuffed. With this, deteriorating weather, and learning at last of Grant’s decision, Sherman ordered a withdrawal. By the morning of January 2, 1863, all his men were again on board ship and on their way down the Yazoo. Union casualties in the Battle of Chickasaw Bluffs were 175 killed, 930 wounded, and 743 prisoners; the Confederates lost only 63 killed, 134 wounded, and 10 prisoners. Grant learned two important lessons from this campaign. The first was that his troops could to some extent live off the land, and the second was that he would have to abandon the overland approach in favor of utilizing the Mississippi River as his main line of communication. On January 11, 1863, meanwhile, a Union combined army-naval effort under Major General John McClernand and Porter secured Fort Hindman, also known as Arkansas Post, on the Arkansas River, 30 miles from the river’s mouth on the Mississippi. Arkansas Post was an important staging area for Confederate raids that threatened Union control of the Mississippi. The Union success here also helped to restore Union morale, which had been shaken by the Chickasaw Bluffs reversal. Confederate losses in the battle numbered about 150 dead and 4,791 prisoners. Union casualties apart from prisoners were heavier because the troops had been forced to assault entrenchments. The Union tally ashore amounted to 79 killed and 440 wounded. The ships sustained about 30 casualties; the gunboat Rattler and ironclad Baron de Kalb were the hardest hit.


As Grant and Porter contemplated their next step, small engagements continued along the Mississippi and on other western rivers, most often between Confederates forces on land and Union ships. Occasionally the Southerners were able to ambush and capture or destroy a lightly armed Union vessel, as when they seized a tug at Memphis. But for the most part the small Union warships used their boat howitzers to disrupt such attacks. Union naval patrols also interdicted Confederate trade, seizing cotton and other goods. Such actions, while for the most part small and receiving little public notice, were important to the overall Union war effort. In early February, Porter sent Brigadier General Alfred W. Ellet in the Queen of the West past Vicksburg to blockade the mouth of the Red River. Ellet took several Confederate steamers by surprise and left one of these, the De Soto, to watch the mouth of the Red, while he took the Queen of the West up the smaller Atchafalaya River to destroy two Confederate wagon trains and burn several plantations. Porter sent additional firepower to Ellet in the form of the powerfully armed Indianola under Lieutenant Commander George Brown. Towing two coal barges, it ran the Vicksburg batteries on February 13 and anchored off the Red River to await news of Ellet. Although Ellet captured the steamer Era No. 5, carrying Confederate soldiers and a cargo of corn, he made the mistake of relying on that ship’s pilot, who deliberately ran the Queen of the West aground near a Confederate shore battery at Gordon’s Landing. Both the Queen of the West and trailing De Soto were lost (the Confederates later repaired and incorporated the Queen of the West into their service), but Ellet and most of his men were able to escape on the Era No. 5, which then joined the Indianola. The Confederates then located the powerful Indianola near Carthage, Mississippi, and attacked and captured it. The ship was subsequently destroyed. In early March, Union major general Nathaniel P. Banks and Farragut agreed to mount a joint attack on Port Hudson, with Banks providing 25,000 troops from Baton Rouge. Farragut planned to bring the shore batteries under fire from mortar boats and the ironclad Essex as the Union ships ran past them. The Union ships made their run on the night of March 14 but discovered an unwelcome surprise in the form of a series of locomotive headlights that the Confederates had placed along the eastern bank. Turned on, these silhouetted the ships and allowed the shore gunners to deliver an accurate fire. Only two of Farragut’s seven ships made it past the defenses. The screw sloops Richmond and Monongahela and the gunboat Kineo were disabled and drifted back downriver out of the battle. The last ship in line, the frigate Mississippi, ran aground and came under heavy Confederate fire. Captain Malancton Smith ordered the crew to abandon ship. The men spiked the guns, destroyed the engines, and then set the ship on fire. It finally drifted downstream completely ablaze before blowing up. Out of its 297 crewmen, 25 were killed and 39 were missing. A good deal of the responsibility for the failure of this enterprise rested with Banks. Although his forces probed the Confederate defenses, they failed to mount


an attack in sufficient force and time to occupy the Confederate gunners. Learning of Farragut’s failure, Banks then called off his own attack. Grant, meanwhile, rejected another frontal assault on Vicksburg, and heavy rain postponed any attempt down the Mississippi until spring. Grant and Porter then decided on a series of smaller operations that would position Union troops below Vicksburg without having to run the river batteries, what were to become known as the “water experiments.” Although Porter said he thought the project ill-conceived, Grant also set 4,000 men to work on the Young’s Point peninsula canal abandoned the previous summer and begun anew before Grant’s arrival. This project proved more difficult than first thought, and on March 8 a sudden rise in the river caused a dam to give way, wiping out most of the work. Confederate snipers and artillery fire prevented reconstruction and led to the project’s abandonment. Grant still hoped to find a means to send troops against Vicksburg and yet avoid the heights north of the city. Toward that end, he ordered troops at Lake Providence in Louisiana to dig a canal and cut the levee at that point. Lake Providence had at one time been a channel for the Mississippi, and Grant hoped that, if the river could be diverted there, sizable Union forces might be moved by water into Bayou Baxter, then into the Rensas River, the Ouachita, and finally into the Red. Although Porter ordered naval units to cooperate, a large number of trees barred the way. The swift river current also drove the steamers against the trees, damaging the vessels and forcing the project to be abandoned. From February to April, Grant and Porter tried again in the Yazoo Pass Expedition. Porter believed that he could work around east of Vicksburg by little-used waterways. Mississippi Delta farmers had used the Yazoo Pass route to trade with Memphis, but it had been closed off when the state of Mississippi ordered construction of a high levee at Yazoo Pass to prevent flooding. Union engineers believed that cutting the Yazoo Pass levee would raise water levels to the point that shallow-draft gunboats and transports might navigate the delta waterways. Grant and Porter hoped that a flotilla of light-draft gunboats, transports, and auxiliaries could then move to somewhere above Haynes’ Bluff. On February 3, Union engineers blew up the levee with explosives and Union forces set out the next day in what was the largest such expedition of the war to that date. The expedition came up against Confederate Fort Pemberton at the confluence of the Tallahatchie and Yalobusha rivers. The Union ironclads got the worst of the exchange of fire on March 11, 13, and 16. The Chillicothe was rendered hors de combat, with 22 killed, drowned, or wounded. The Baron de Kalb was also damaged. The effort to reduce the fort ended on April 4, with Union forces retracing their steps north to the Mississippi. While the Yazoo force was encountering difficulties and Farragut was attempting to get his ships past Port Hudson, Porter launched his Steele’s Bayou Expedition, hoping thereby to secure entrance to the Yazoo and land above Haynes’ Bluff to turn the Confederate flank. The going was slow and the ships came under heavy


opposition from Confederate troops along the river banks. This too was a failure. With Porter contemplating scuttling his ships, Union troops drove the Confederates from both banks, allowing the Union ships to reach safety. The March 14–27 expedition covered some 140 miles—70 each way—but it too ended in failure. Grant, Sherman, and Porter then met to consider their next step. With winter past, additional land options were possible, including an earlier plan now rendered feasible by the receding waters. Grant’s troops would march down the Louisiana side of the river south of Vicksburg to New Carthage. Porter’s ships, meanwhile, would run past Vicksburg and ferry Grant’s men across the river to Grand Gulf, Mississippi, allowing him to approach Vicksburg from the south. Although the plan was risky, Grant was determined to try. On March 29, Grant began moving his men down the Louisiana shore. Porter’s crews, meanwhile, prepared for the dangerous run past the Vicksburg batteries, which was accomplished on the night of April 16. Although all the Union ships were hit by fire from the shore, only a transport sustained fatal injury. All its crew members were saved. Remarkably, in an action extending over two and a half hours, the total Union toll was only 12 men wounded. In the exchange, Vicksburg had suffered damage and one Confederate gun had burst, killing 2 men and wounding another 6. Other Union ships subsequently also made the passage. A few days later, six transports with barges of supplies floated past Vicksburg, and only one was lost. With New Carthage proving untenable, Grant consolidated his forces at Hard Times, Louisiana. Porter and Grant hoped to overcome Confederate defenses at Grand Gulf on the east bank, 25 miles south of Vicksburg, and cross there. On April 29, Porter mounted an effort with seven ships to overcome the defenses. The engagement lasted more than six hours, and although the lower Confederate battery was silenced, most of the ships were damaged in turn. One ship was struck 47 times. In all, Porter’s ships sustained 18 killed and 56 wounded. Two ships were badly damaged. Learning from an escaped slave of another landing site with a road to the interior, Grant ordered a crossing at that point, at Bruinsburg, Mississippi, six miles downriver. On April 30, Porter’s ships began ferrying Grant’s troops across the river. To confuse Pemberton and prevent him from sending forces south, Grant and Porter mounted a diversion by Sherman’s corps up the Yazoo in ships left behind for this purpose. From April 19 to May 1, 8 warships and 10 large transports proceeded up the Yazoo and disembarked the troops at Haynes’ Bluff. Pemberton recalled troops sent south to reinforce against Grant and sent them by forced march to Haynes’ Bluff. Additionally, beginning on April 17, Union Army colonel Henry Grierson had led 1,700 cavalry in a brilliant 600-mile-long, two-week raid into Mississippi from La Grange, Tennessee, tearing up rails and destroying Confederate supply depots before ending up at Baton Rouge. Through May 1, 24,000 Union troops crossed the Mississippi at Bruinsburg in what was the largest U.S. amphibious operation to that point in history. A force of


8,000 Confederates tried without success to destroy the lodgment. Meanwhile, on May 4, Porter proceeded up the Red River with the six ships. His forces captured Confederate Fort DeRussy and then took Alexandria. Porter then dropped down the river to destroy the works at Fort DeRussy. Grant, meanwhile, defied Halleck’s instructions that he await the arrival of reinforcements under Banks from Natchez. Even his friend Sherman urged delay, but Grant knew that this would give the Confederates time to both reinforce and fortify. He abandoned his river base and marched inland with 20,000 men, carrying as much ammunition as possible along with five days worth of food supplies in confiscated conveyances. Grant ordered his men to forage and live off the land as much as possible. Grant then conducted one of the most brilliant campaigns in American military history. Striking east, on May 3 he took Port Gibson, forcing the Confederates to abandon Grand Gulf to the north. Advised by theater commander General Joseph Johnston to join him in an effort to defeat Grant in open battle while at the same time ordered by President Jefferson Davis to defend Vicksburg “at all cost,” Pemberton obeyed Davis. Moving northeast, Grant prevented a juncture of Johnston and Pemberton. On May 12, he was victorious at Raymond and two days later he took the city of Jackson, held by 6,000 Confederates. Grant soon abandoned that important railhead, but not before having destroyed it as a transportation and logistics base for Vicksburg. Grant then turned due west for Vicksburg. At Champion’s Hill on May 17, with 29,000 men, he defeated Pemberton, who had come out from Vicksburg with 22,000 men. Pemberton then retired back into the Vicksburg defensive perimeter. Union casualties amounted to 2,500 men, while the Confederates lost some 4,000. By May 18, Grant had invested Vicksburg. Following two unsuccessful assaults on May 19 and 22, Grant went over to siege warfare, while at the same time releasing some of his steadily increasing manpower to Sherman to tear up the roads, destroy bridges, and carry out foraging, effectively countering Johnston’s efforts to mount a relief operation. The Union Navy also played a key role in the subsequent siege of Vicksburg. It provided logistic support and landed some heavy guns and the crews to work them. It also provided naval gunfire, and Union mortar boats lobbed thousands of shells into the city. Porter’s ships, divided into divisions above and below Vicksburg, also prevented any Confederate resupply from the west. Porter followed Grant’s operations closely, and on May 18, with Sherman’s troops having taken Snyder’s Bluff, he sent ships under Walke up the Yazoo to open communications with them. This operation involved two ironclads and four tinclads. Porter then ordered Walke to Haynes’ Bluff, where he discovered the shore batteries abandoned and disabled 14 heavy guns and destroyed a large quantity of ammunition. Proceeding upriver to Yazoo City, there they found under construction the gunboats Mobile and Republic and an as yet unnamed 310-foot-long


“monster” (Porter’s characterization) to be powered by six engines. The Confederates burned all three to prevent their capture. The Union sailors then put to the torch the Yazoo City Navy Yard and its shops and sawmills. Farther upriver, they destroyed seven small steamers. On July 13, in another foray up the Yazoo, the Baron de Kalb struck two torpedoes and sank, although no lives were lost. Meanwhile, on May 27, as the steady Union bombardment of Vicksburg continued from both land and water, Porter ordered Lieutenant George M. Bache to take the ironclad Cincinnati and destroy a Confederate battery on Fort Hill that threatened an impending move by Sherman’s troops. As the ironclad worked into position, the river current turned the ship around, exposing its weak stern and allowing the shore battery to rake it with shell fire. It too was lost, with 40 of its crew casualties. The siege of Vicksburg was now drawing to a close. Grant’s forces daily increased in strength, while Confederate soldiers and civilians in the city alike were driven into caves to escape the relentless Union shelling. With food stocks near exhaustion and even drinking water in scarce supply, on July 3 Pemberton met with Grant and the next day surrendered Vicksburg and 31,600 officers and men, along with 172 cannon and 60,000 small arms. Union casualties in the campaign numbered some 17,000 dead. Grant praised Porter and the navy for their role in the Union victory, claiming that “the most perfect harmony reigned between the two arms of the service.” Port Hudson, the last Confederate bastion on the Great River, surrendered on July 9, following a 48-day siege by 30,000 Union troops under Banks. The entire Mississippi was now under Union control and the Confederacy split. Lincoln summed up, “The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea.” The president also paid praise to the navy, “Uncle Sam’s Web-feet,” who had made their tracks “wherever the ground was a little damp.” Control of the mighty river greatly benefitted the Union. Significant resupply from the Trans-Mississippi West to the rest of the Confederacy was now largely cut off. Midwestern farmers could also export their goods via the river, ensuring the support of that important region for the Union war effort. The victory brought Grant’s promotion to lieutenant general and his elevation to command of all Union armies, and Porter received the thanks of Congress and was made a permanent rear admiral. With the north-south axis now secure, Grant was free to attempt to split the Confederacy from west to east. Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Anaconda Strategy; Arkansas, CSS; Bache, George Mifflin; Baron de Kalb, USS; Cairo, USS; Chickasaw Bluffs, Battle of; Cincinnati, USS; Davis, Charles Henry; Ellet, Alfred Washington; Essex, USS; Farragut, David Glasgow; Fort Hindman, Battle of; Fox, Gustavus Vasa; Grand Gulf, Mississippi, Union Shelling of; Haynes’ Bluff, Mississippi, Union Demonstration at; Lincoln, Abraham; Memphis, First Battle of;

734 |â•‡ Virginia, CSS Mississippi, USS; Mississippi River; Mississippi River Defense Fleet; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Mortar Boats; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; Porter, David Dixon; Port Hudson, Louisiana, Siege of; Queen of the West, USS; Ram Fleet, U.S.; Red River; Richmond, USS; Riverine Warfare; Ship Island, Mississippi; Steele’s Bayou Expedition; Torpedoes; Vicksburg, Mississippi, Mississippi Squadron Passage of; Vicksburg, Mississippi, West Gulf Squadron Passage of; Walke, Henry; Welles, Gideon; West Gulf Blockading Squadron; Yazoo Pass Expedition; Yazoo River

References Ballard, Michael B. Vicksburg: The Campaign That Opened the Mississippi. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. Groom, Winston. Vicksburg, 1863. New York: Knopf, 2009. Shea, William L., and Terrence J. Winschel. Vicksburg Is the Key: The Struggle for the Mississippi River. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vols. 23–25. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1910–1912.

Virginia, CSS Confederate Navy ironclad. CSS Virginia was the reincarnation of the U.S. Navy screw frigate Merrimack, which had been scuttled at the Norfolk (Gosport) Navy Yard in April 1861 when that facility was seized by the State of Virginia. Although the Merrimack’s spar and gun decks were destroyed by the fire and the berth deck was damaged, its machinery and hull could be salvaged. The Confederates raised what remained, moved it to the yard’s large dry dock, and began its conversion into an ironclad. Lieutenant John M. Brooke drew up the basic plans and had charge of the ordnance and armor, Naval Constructor John L. Porter oversaw the reconstruction, and Chief Engineer William P. Williamson dealt with the overhaul of the engines. The Merrimack’s two engines had been intended only as auxiliary power and were inadequate in the best of circumstances. Their rebuilding could not solve the problem of inadequate power, which would be more pronounced with the far heavier ironclad. Work on the ship ultimately involved some 1,500 men. They shortened the ship by 15 feet and built a main deck 2 feet above the waterline. On top of this they constructed a central casemate sloping upward and inward 36 degrees on each side so as to deflect shot. The casemate extended over the hull and into the water. It began 29 feet from the bow and ran aft for 170 feet. It was formed of 4 inches of oak laid horizontally, 8 inches of yellow pine laid vertically, and 12 inches of white pine laid horizontally, the whole caulked and bolted together. This was then sheathed

Virginia, CSSâ•‡ | 735

Illustration depicting the Confederate ironclad ram Virginia steaming past the Naval Hospital, Portsmouth,Virginia, on its way to engage the Union warships in Hampton Roads, March 8, 1862. (Naval History and Heritage Command)

in iron plate. Unique in Confederate ironclads, both ends of the casemate were rounded. The casemate itself was pierced by 14 elliptical gun ports, 4 unevenly spaced on port and starboard (so as to provide greater room for the gun crews to work inside the sloping casemate) and 3 each at bow and stern. The flat top of the casemate, also known as the shield or spar deck, was pierced by the funnel and three gratings that provided ventilation to the gun deck below. The gratings were formed of 2-inch-thick iron bars. The Virginia was the first modern warship to completely do away with rigging. Also unique to Confederate ironclads was its submerged bow and stern. A 1,500pound iron ram about three feet long was placed at the bow underwater. Plans called for the Virginia to be ready in November. Had the work proceeded on schedule, the Confederacy would have had stolen an important march on the Union. Armoring the ship brought delays, however. Originally the Virginia was to have three thicknesses of one-inch plate, but Brooke confirmed the need for two thicknesses of two-inch plate. The plate was applied in two layers, the inner layer running horizontally and the outer vertically. The Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond was able to produce the plate from rolled railroad iron, but the 723 tons of plate required nearly the entire activity of its rolling mills for five months.

736 |â•‡ Virginia, CSS

A shortage of freight cars also delayed transporting the plate. The Virginia was launched on February 17, 1862, a full week after the launching of the Northern ironclad Monitor. The Virginia was 263 feet between perpendiculars, 51 feet 4 inches in beam, and 22 feet in draft. It displaced some 4,500 tons. Problems were immediately apparent. Steering was so sluggish that it took 30–40 minutes and four miles to bring the ship about 180 degrees. Its top speed was only about 9 knots. Most serious, Porter had miscalculated the ship’s displacement, with the result that the ship rode too high in the water. The armor-plated casemate was to have extended 2 feet under water to protect the hull, but in places it was submerged only an inch or so. This would be the ship’s greatest vulnerability and remained the chief concern. Adding 150 tons of coal, additional ballast, shot, and supplies helped somewhat, but this problem was never completely resolved. The Virginia was well armed. On its completion, it mounted 10 guns: 6 IX-inch smoothbore Dahlgrens and 2 6.4-inch single-banded Brooke rifles in broadsides and 2 7-inch single-banded Brooke rifles in pivot at bow and stern. When it went into battle, the ship had shell for all its guns but, owing to the delays in manufacture and transportation, had shot only for its smoothbores. Flag Officer Franklin Buchanan had charge of Confederate naval defenses in the James River, and he assumed command of the Virginia. The ironclad had a crew of 320 men, including 55 marines. At 11:00 a.m. on March 8 the Virginia sortied from Norfolk, going into battle against the Union ships in Hampton Roads without trials or underway training for the crew. After destroying both the sloop Cumberland and the frigate Congress, the next day the Virginia engaged the Monitor, which had arrived in Hampton Roads only the evening before. The two ships fought to a draw, but the presence of the Virginia kept Union forces from moving up the James. On April 11 Buchanan’s successor Flag Officer Josiah Tattnall took the Virginia out again, but the Monitor refused battle, remaining under the protection of the heavy guns at Fort Monroe to cover the Union army’s base and its essential water lines of communication. The Virginia’s squadron then captured three Union transports off the city of Hampton and returned with the prizes to Norfolk. On May 10 the Confederates evacuated the Norfolk Navy Yard and Union troops occupied Norfolk just behind the departing Confederates. The Virginia was moored off Sewell’s Point when Tattnall learned of the loss of Norfolk. He tried to get the Virginia up the James by lightening it, but low water from a prevailing western wind prevented this. With the ship now lightened to the point where it could no longer be safely fought, Tattnall had no choice but to scuttle it; the Virginia was blown up early on May 11. The Virginia was the prototype for most of the 50 ironclads built or laid down by the South during the war. Spencer C. Tucker

Virginia, CSSâ•‡ | 737

See also Brooke, John Mercer; Buchanan, Franklin; Fort Monroe, Virginia; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Ironclads, Confederate; James River; Monitor, USS; Norfolk Navy Yard; Porter, John Luke; Tattnall, Josiah; Tredegar Iron Works

References Brooke, George M., Jr. John M. Brooke: Naval Scientist and Educator. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1980. Quarstein, John V. C.S.S. Virginia: Mistress of Hampton Roads. Appomattox, VA: H. E. Howard, 2000. Still, William N., Jr. Iron Afloat: The Story of the Confederate Armorclads. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1985.


W Waddell, James Iredell Birth Date: July 13, 1824 Death Date: March 15, 1886 Confederate Navy officer and commander of the commerce raider Shenandoah. Born in Pittsboro, North Carolina, on July 13, 1824, and reared by his parental grandparents, James Iredell Waddell was educated at the Bingham’s School in Hillsboro. He received an appointment as a midshipman in the U.S. Navy on September 10, 1841. He then served in the ship of the line Pennsylvania. A duel with another midshipman in 1842 led to a serious hip wound that cost Waddell 11 months of recuperation and gave him a permanent limp. At the beginning of the Mexican-American War (1846–1848), from February to October 1846 Waddell served aboard the brig Somers. He then reported to the Naval Academy at Annapolis, where on August 10, 1847, he became a passed midshipman. Waddell then briefly served at the Naval Observatory, followed by assignments in the ship of the line Independence in the Mediterranean. Promoted to master on September 14, 1855, and to lieutenant on September 15, 1855, he served on the sloop Germantown in the South Atlantic during 1855–1857, on the supply ship Relief in the Pacific (1857), as an instructor at the Naval Academy (1858–1860), and in the eastern Pacific on the side-wheeler steam Saginaw (1860) and the sloop John Adams. Waddell was at St. Helena in November 1861 when he first learned of the actual start of the Civil War. He immediately wrote to Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles to resign his commission. Welles dismissed him from the navy on January 18, 1862, when the John Adams arrived at New York. Two months later, on March 27, 1862, Waddell was commissioned a lieutenant in the Confederate Navy. Waddell’s first assignment was to the ram CSS Mississippi, then under construction at New Orleans, but it had to be destroyed at the end of April to prevent capture by Flag Officer David Farragut’s Union squadron. Waddell returned to Richmond and was then assigned to naval batteries ashore, first at Drewry’s Bluff, Virginia, and then at Charleston, South Carolina. In March 1863 Confederate secretary of the navy Stephen Mallory ordered Waddell to Europe, where he was to be assigned to one of the Laird Rams then nearing completion in England. When Union protests led the British government to block the transfer of these ships to the Confederacy, Waddell was told that he would be assigned to a commerce raider or blockade-runner. 739

740 |â•‡Waddell, James Iredell

On September 5, 1863, Flag Officer Samuel Barron, the ranking Confederate officer in Europe, promoted Waddell to lieutenant commander. Confederate naval agent in Britain James D. Bulloch had secured the fast merchant ship Sea King, the last Confederate cruiser he was able to get to sea. Named its commander, Waddell was instructed by Barron to locate and destroy the Union whaling fleet. The Sea King slipped out of the Thames estuary on what appeared to be a merchant voyage but then proceeded to Funchal on the island of Madeira, where it rendezvoused with the supply ship Laurel carrying the remainder of its crew and armament. On October 19, 1864, Waddell officially commissioned the Sea King the Confederate warship Shenandoah and began his cruise for Union merchant ships. The Shenandoah took six Union vessels as prizes in the Atlantic. During January–February 1865 Waddell was at Melbourne, Australia, where the ship was drydocked to repair a defective propeller shaft and bearing. Although the Shenandoah took Union ships in four oceans, most of its damage was effected in the Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean, where Waddell located and destroyed much of the Union whaling fleet. Refusing to believe reports of the end of the war, Waddell planned a descent on San Francisco to destroy Union shipping there. Despite newspapers aboard some of the Union vessels with news of Confederate general Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, not until August 2, 1865, after Waddell had left northern waters, was he convinced by news from a British ship of the end of the war. The strain of the long cruise and the threat of possible encounter with Union warships took a toll on the crew. Journals by crew members tell of drunkenness and occasional fights aboard the ship, and one of his officers charged that Waddell turned into a vicious and unreasonable tyrant. Waddell held himself aloof from his officers and men and was considered humorless and single-minded. Believing that the destruction of so many Union merchant ships after the official end of the war would lead to his being tried as a pirate in the United States, Waddell disguised his ship and sailed it to Britain without stopping at any port. In the process the Shenandoah became the only Confederate warship to sail around the world. Reaching Liverpool on November 6, 1865, a voyage of some 17,000 miles without communicating with another ship, Waddell surrendered to British authorities. In all, the Shenandoah had traveled some 58,000 miles, during which time Waddell had put into port only once and had taken in all 38 prizes. He burned 32 of them and commandeered the remainder; damage to Union shipping was estimated at more than $1.36 million. Waddell remained in Britain until he was certain that he would not be prosecuted by U.S. authorities. In 1875 he returned to the United States and became a captain for the Pacific Mail Company. Waddell had command of the 4,000-ton mail steamer San Francisco when, on May 16, 1877, during its maiden voyage to the United States from Melbourne it struck an unmarked reef 14 miles off the coast of Mexico. Waddell brought the ship to within 3 miles of shore before it went down, and all hands survived. The company directors did not blame Waddell, and

Walke, Henryâ•‡ | 741

he continued as a captain with that firm for several years before becoming commander of the Maryland State Fishery Force to combat illegal oyster fishing. Waddell died at Annapolis, Maryland, on March 15, 1886. Before his death he wrote an account of the Shenandoah’s cruise, probably for his family, but the account was subsequently published. Spencer C. Tucker See also Barron, Samuel; Bulloch, James Dunwody; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Farragut, David Glasgow; Laird Rams; Mallory, Stephen Russell; Mississippi, CSS; Semmes, Raphael; Shenandoah, CSS; Welles, Gideon; West Gulf Blockading Squadron

References Chaffin, Tom. Sea of Gray: The Around-the-World Odyssey of the Confederate Raider Shenandoah. New York: Hill and Wang, 2006. Curry, Angus. The Officers of the CSS Shenandoah. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2006. McKay, Gary. The Sea King: The Life of James Iredell Waddell. Edinburgh, UK: Birlinn, 2009. Morgan, Murray. Dixie Raider: The Saga of the C.S.S. Shenandoah. New York: Dutton, 1948. Waddell, James I. C.S.S. Shenandoah: The Memoirs of Lieutenant Commanding James I. Waddell. Edited by James D. Horan. New York: Crown, 1960.

Walke, Henry Birth Date: December 24, 1808 Death Date: March 8, 1896 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Princess Anne County, Virginia, on December 24, 1808, Henry Walke moved as a boy with his family to Chillicothe, Ohio. On February 1, 1827, he entered the U.S. Navy as a midshipman. He was promoted to passed midshipman on June 10, 1833; lieutenant on December 9, 1839; and commander on September 14, 1855. Serving in a variety of routine assignments, during the Mexican-American War (1846–1848) Walke was the executive officer on the bomb brig Vesuvius in the Gulf Squadron and participated in operations against Vera Cruz, Tabasco, Tuxpan, and Alvarado. In June 1861 Walke was at Pensacola, Florida, with the storeship Supply when secessionists seized the navy yard there. Walke removed the garrison and transported them to New York. Court-martialed for leaving his station without orders, he received only a mild reprimand. Assigned to the western theater, Walke took command of the gunboat Tyler under Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote. Walke provided critical shore bombardment support while in command of the Tyler and another timberclad, the Lexington, in Missouri during the Battle of Belmont in November 1861. Given command of the

742 |â•‡Walker, William Sparhawk

ironclad Carondelet, he took part in the Union capture of Forts Henry and Donelson in February 1862. Walke volunteered for the daring mission of steaming past Confederate-held Island Number 10, which he accomplished on the stormy night of April 4–5, 1862. This action enabled Union troops at New Madrid to cross the Mississippi, cutting off Island Number 10 and forcing its surrender. Walke participated in subsequent operations against Fort Pillow, in the naval Battle of Memphis, and operations up the Yazoo River. Advanced to captain on July 16, 1862, he commanded the ironclad Lafayette during the Vicksburg Campaign. In September 1863 Walke received command of the screw sloop Sacramento, and from January 1864 he searched for Confederate commerce raiders in European waters. Locating CSS Rappahannock at Calais, he spent 15 months blockading that ship there. Advanced to commodore on July 25, 1866, Walke became a rear admiral on July 18, 1870. He retired in April 1871 but then served on the Lighthouse Board until April 1873. A talented artist and a writer, Walke published articles and a book, which he also illustrated, about his Civil War experiences. Walke died in Brooklyn, New York, on March 8, 1896. Spencer C. Tucker See also Belmont, Battle of; Carondelet, USS; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Foote, Andrew Hull; Fort Donelson, Battle of; Fort Henry, Battle of; Fort Pillow, Tennessee; Island Number 10, Battle of; Lexington, USS; Memphis, First Battle of; Mississippi River; Tyler, USS

References Slagle, Jay. Ironclad Captain: Seth Ledyard Phelps and the U.S. Navy, 1841–1864. Kent OH: Kent State University Press, 1996. Tucker, Spencer C. Andrew Foote: Civil War Admiral on Western Waters. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000. Walke, Henry. Naval Scenes and Reminiscences of the Civil War in the United States. New York: F. R. Reed, 1877.

Walker, William Sparhawk Birth Date: December 6, 1793 Death Date: November 24, 1863 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Newington, New Hampshire, on December 6, 1793, William Sparhawk Walker received a midshipman’s warrant on March 14, 1814. He was promoted to lieutenant on January 13, 1825, and to commander on September 8, 1841. During the Mexican-American War (1846–1848) Walker commanded the bomb brig Stromboli in operations in May 1847 against the Gulf Coast port of Coatzacoalcos, Mexico, at the mouth of the navigable river of the same name. Promoted

Ward, James Harmonâ•‡ | 743

to captain on September 14, 1855, at the beginning of 1861 Walker had been in the navy for 46 years: some 12 years in sea service, 17 years in shore assignments, and 17 years awaiting orders in a navy with too many officers for available assignments. At the beginning of 1861 Walker was commanding the screw sloop Brooklyn in the Home Squadron. On January 7, 1861, he was ordered by Secretary of the Navy Isaac Toucey to sail to Charleston, South Carolina, and assist the Star of the West in reprovisioning Fort Sumter. Arriving off Charleston Harbor on January 12, Walker learned that the Star of the West had been fired on by shore batteries, and he returned to Hampton Roads. Ordered on January 21 to embark troops at Fort Monroe and deliver them to beleaguered Fort Pickens, which was still in Union hands after the secession of Florida, he there learned that an agreement had been reached whereby state forces would not assault Pickens in return for a pledge that Union forces at the fort would not be reinforced. The troops were finally landed on April 12 by order of the new administration headed by President Abraham Lincoln. Walker’s health and age led to his relief from command in the summer of 1861, and he was placed on the retired list on December 21. Early in 1863 he was promoted to commodore on the retired list with rank backdated to July 16, 1862. Walker died in Boston, Massachusetts, on November 24, 1863. Spencer C. Tucker See also Brooklyn, USS; Fort Monroe, Virginia; Fort Pickens, Florida; Fort Sumter, South Carolina; Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, Relief Efforts and Beginning of the Civil War; Star of the West, USS; Toucey, Isaac


Ward, James Harmon Birth Date: September 25, 1806 Death Date: June 27, 1861 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Hartford, Connecticut, on September 25, 1806, James Harmon Ward graduated in 1823 from the American Literary, Scientific, and Military Academy (today Norwich University) and received an appointment as a midshipman in the U.S. Navy on March 4, 1823. He served aboard the frigate Constitution in the Mediterranean Squadron for four years and then studied for one year at Washington College in Hartford. He saw further sea duty in the Mediterranean and with the Africa Squadron before serving with the West Indies

744 |â•‡Ward, James Harmon

Squadron combating piracy. He was promoted to passed midshipman on March 23, 1829, and to lieutenant on March 3, 1831. He then became an instructor of ordnance and gunnery at the Naval School in Philadelphia. In 1845 Lieutenant Ward became one of the first staff members at the new United States Naval Academy, serving as executive officer and as instructor of gunnery and steam engineering. Ward was known as one of the most scholarly officers in the navy and throughout his career published numerous texts on naval matters, including steam engineering, ordnance, and gunnery. In 1847 Ward assumed command of the frigate Cumberland and served with the Home Squadron in the Gulf of Mexico for the remainder of the MexicanAmerican War. From 1848 to 1850 he commanded the steam gunboat Vixen, again with the Home Squadron in Mexican waters. He was promoted to commander on September 9, 1853. His most significant service in the 1850s involved command of the sloop Jamestown from 1855 to 1857 in the Africa Squadron in an effort to stop the international trafficking of slaves. In 1860 Commander Ward began a tour of duty at the New York Navy Yard, completing his last book on steam engineering at this time. As tensions rose between the North and South in early 1861, Ward helped develop a plan to relieve the U.S. Army garrison at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, and was recommended to be its commander. The plan was never implemented, however. He then suggested the creation of a so-called flying squadron—later the Potomac Flotilla—and in May 1861 took command of that seven-ship squadron in Chesapeake Bay. Its primary task was to protect the southern approaches to Washington, D.C. This command operated independently of the Atlantic Squadron. With his flagship the recently purchased steamer Thomas Freeborn, Ward led his ships into action and silenced a southern battery at Aquia Creek on June 1, 1861, in an otherwise inconclusive engagement with Confederate Army forces. On June 27 his flotilla landed men to destroy a Confederate battery at Matthias Point, Virginia, but faced stiff opposition there. Ward himself briefly went ashore but returned to his flagship upon the approach of Confederate forces. While sighting a bow gun on deck in an effort to support the withdrawal of remaining Union forces under Lieutenant J. C. Chaplin of the screw sloop Pawnee, Ward was struck by Confederate small-arms fire and mortally wounded, becoming the only member of his command killed in the engagement (four others were wounded). Ward was also the first U.S. Navy officer killed in action during the Civil War. Stephen Svonavec See also Brooklyn Navy Yard; Flotilla; Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, Relief Efforts and Beginning of the Civil War; Naval Academy, United States; Pawnee, USS; Potomac Flotilla; Washington Navy Yard

References Canney, Donald L. Africa Squadron: The US Navy and the Slave Trade, 1842–1861. Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2006.

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Coski, John M. “A Navy Department, Hitherto Unknown to Our State Organization.” In Virginia at War 1861, edited by William C. Davis and James I. Robertson, 65–88. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2005. Soley, J. Russell. “Early Operations on the Potomac River.” In Battles and Leaders of the Civil War: Being for the Most Part Contributions by Union and Confederate Officers, 4 vols., edited by Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence Clough Buel, 2:142. 1883; reprint, Secaucus, NJ: Castle, n.d.

Washington Navy Yard Strategic U.S. Navy facility during the Civil War that occupied 42 acres on the eastern branch of the Potomac River in southeastern Washington, D.C. (roughly along 9th and M streets). President Thomas Jefferson contributed to the design of the yard, the original boundaries of which were established in 1800. Jefferson

Photograph of the Washington Navy Yard in 1866. The ships at right include three monitors and a former Confederate torpedo boat of the David type. The monitor to the left is either the Chimo or Casco. The other two are the Mahopac (center) and Saugus (right). Ex-CSS Stonewall is at anchor in the river. The dismasted screw steamer at the waterfront in center may be USS Marblehead. The ship in the right foreground may be USS Resaca. (Naval History and Heritage Command)

746 |â•‡Wassaw Sound, Battle of

employed the famed architect Benjamin Latrobe to design most of the structures. One of their primary targets and burned by the British in 1814 during their brief occupation of Washington, the naval station took on an added significance at the outbreak of the Civil War because of its close proximity to the Union capital. The shallow waters of the Potomac River and the absence of a dry dock did not make the Washington Navy Yard an ideal shipbuilding facility. However, during the war it housed the U.S. Navy’s Ordnance Department, its Steam Engineering Department, and its sole anchor and chain shop. The Ordnance Department tested new naval weapons, including armor for the new ironclads, and produced Dahlgren boat howitzers. The department employed more than 600 men during the war. In addition to these indispensable services, the shore location, possessing 612 yards of waterfront slips, emerged as a major repair shop for the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron and served as the home port of the Potomac Flotilla, charged with defending the capital. Commander John A. Dahlgren assumed command of the yard at the beginning of the war after Captain Franklin Buchanan resigned his commission to serve in the Confederate Navy. President Abraham Lincoln frequented the yard and became fast friends with Dahlgren. Lincoln expressed a keen interest in the new military technologies undergoing tests there. President and Mrs. Lincoln visited the yard on the afternoon of April 14, 1865, only hours before the president was assassinated. Several days later the body of John Wilkes Booth, Lincoln’s assassin, was brought to the yard for examination. William E. Whyte III See also Buchanan, Franklin; Dahlgren, John Adolph Bernard; Lincoln, Abraham; Naval Ordnance; North Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Potomac Flotilla; Potomac River

References Canney, Donald L. Lincoln’s Navy: The Ships, Men and Organization, 1861–65. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998. Peck, Taylor. Round Shot to Rockets: A History of the Washington Navy Yard and U.S. Naval Gun Factory. Annapolis, MD: United States Naval Institute, 1949. Symonds, Craig L. Lincoln and His Admirals. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.

Wassaw Sound, Battle of Event Date: June 17, 1863 Engagement between Union and Confederate ironclads. Learning that the feared Confederate ironclad Atlanta was about to come down from Savannah to attack the Union wooden blockaders in Wassaw Sound, Georgia, Rear Admiral Samuel F. Du Pont, commander of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, ordered Captain John Rodgers and the Passaic-class monitors Weehawken and Nahant to the sound. For some days it appeared that the report had been a false alarm, but on June 17

Webb, CSSâ•‡ | 747

Confederate commander William A. Webb led the Atlanta and the wooden steamers Isondiga and Resolute down the Wilmington River and into the sound. At about 4:00 a.m. on June 17, Union lookouts spotted the Confederate ships. Rodgers immediately ordered his monitors to get up steam, and the crews beat to quarters. The casemated Atlanta mounted four Brooke rifled guns: two 6.4-inchers in broadsides and two 7-inchers in pivot mounts capable of firing to either side. It also had a bow-mounted percussion spar torpedo, which Webb hoped to explode against the Weehawken. Commander John Downes followed with the Nahant. Exiting the river and making straight for the Weehawken, the Atlanta veered from the channel and grounded. Unaware of what had transpired, Rodgers advanced in the Weehawken, with the Nahant following. The Atlanta opened fire and got off six shots, all of which missed the Union ships. Rodgers withheld fire until the Weehawken was only 300–400 yards distant and then fired a 400-pound projectile from the Weehawken’s XV-inch Dahlgren that struck the Atlanta’s casemate. While it failed to penetrate, the shot crushed both the iron plate and its wooden backing. The Union monitor fired just five shots in 15 minutes at relatively close range, four of them striking. Three of the projectiles did the damage. They smashed through the Atlanta’s armored casemate, disabled its guns, caused personnel casualties, and forced Webb to surrender. Of the Atlanta’s 145-man crew, 16 were wounded, 1 mortally. The two other Confederate warships, which had kept their distance during the action, withdrew back up the Wilmington. Rodgers’s success earned him the thanks of Congress and advancement to commodore with date of rank from his victory. The next year the repaired Atlanta was taken into the U.S. Navy and joined the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. Spencer C. Tucker See also Atlanta, CSS; Du Pont, Samuel Francis; Passaic-Class Monitors; Rodgers, John; Spar Torpedo; Webb, William Augustine

References Johnson, Robert Erwin. Rear Admiral John Rodgers, 1812–1882. Annapolis, MD: U.S. Naval Institute, 1967. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 14. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1902.

Webb, CSS CSS Webb, also known as the William H. Webb, was a side-wheeler steamer. Built in New York by the firm of Webb as a tugboat, the William H. Webb was launched

748 |â•‡ Webb, CSS

on September 6, 1856. The Webb was 655 tons burden, 206 feet in length, 32 feet in beam, and 9.5 feet in draft. Sold to the Southern Steamship Company, the Webb arrived in New Orleans from Havana, Cuba, in May 1861. Issued a privateer’s commission, it never saw service in this guise but was employed as a transport. In January 1862 Confederate major general Mansfield Lovell took the Webb into Confederate service. The steamer escaped north from New Orleans before the Union capture of that city in April 1862. Confederate authorities in Jackson, Mississippi, ordered the Webb converted into a steam ram at Alexandria, Louisiana. As modified, the ram mounted one 8-inch rifled gun and two 12-pounder howitzers. Confederate Army major Joseph L. Brent had command. Manned by Confederate soldiers, the Webb took part with the Queen of the West, Dr. Beatty, and Grand Era in the capture of the U.S. Navy ironclad Indianola in the Mississippi River near Carthage, Mississippi, on February 24, 1863. In the spring of 1863 when Rear Admiral David G. Farragut’s squadron had run north past Vicksburg’s batteries, the Webb sought refuge in the Red River above Alexandria, where it remained largely inactive. It was transferred to the Confederate Navy in early 1865, and Lieutenant Charles W. Read assumed command. Read concocted a daring scheme to refit the Webb, disguise it as a Union warship, fill it with cotton, and sail it down the Red River and then 300 miles down the Mississippi and into the Gulf of Mexico to Cuba, where he intended to sell the cotton and use it to purchase arms for the Confederacy. Read wrote to Secretary of the Navy Stephen R. Mallory that he intended “to stake everything upon speed and time.” Read set out on April 16, 1865, and slowly made his way down the Red River. At Alexandria, Louisiana, he learned of General Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox and the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln but, regardless, was determined to continue on. On the evening of April 23 Read surprised and broke through Union ships guarding the mouth of the Red River and then dashed down the Mississippi in an effort to gain the sea. The fast-moving Webb soon outdistanced three pursuing Union warships and passed by New Orleans as planned in darkness at about midnight on April 24. Despite Read having stopped to send men ashore to cut telegraph lines, having dressed his crew in U.S. Navy uniforms, and flying the U.S. flag at half-mast in honor of President Lincoln, Union forces downriver had indeed been alerted by at least one telegraph message to the presence of the ram, and at New Orleans Union gunboats opened up on the Webb, damaging the spar torpedo at the ship’s bow and forcing Read to jettison it. Read then ordered the Confederate flag raised, and the Webb continued downstream, but about 25 miles below the city it encountered the powerful U.S. Navy steam sloop Richmond, which it could not elude. Trapped between the Richmond and the gunboats, Read gave up his escape plan and ran the Webb ashore at McCall’s Point, where its crew set it on fire and escaped into the swamps on foot. The majority of the officers and men of the Webb, including Read, were captured a few hours later and taken to New Orleans. Spencer C. Tucker

Webb, William Augustineâ•‡ | 749

See also Farragut, David Glasgow; Lincoln, Abraham; Mallory, Stephen Russell; Mississippi River; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; Privateers; Queen of the West, USS; Queen of the West vs. Indianola; Read, Charles William; Red River; Richmond, USS; Spar Torpedo; Vicksburg, Mississippi, West Gulf Squadron Passage of

References Jones, Robert A. Confederate Corsair: The Life of Lt. Charles W. “Savez” Read. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2000. Shaw, David W. Sea Wolf of the Confederacy: The Daring Civil War Raids of Naval Lt. Charles W. Read. New York: Free Press, 2004. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 21. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1908. U.S. Navy Department, Naval History Division. Civil War Naval Chronology, 1861– 1865. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971.

Webb, William Augustine Birth Date: July 14, 1824 Death Date: December 1, 1881 Confederate Navy officer. Born on July 14, 1824, in Virginia, probably in Goochland County, William Augustine Webb was the son of a U.S. Navy officer. Webb secured a midshipman’s warrant in the U.S. Navy on January 26, 1838. He was promoted to passed midshipman on July 2, 1845. During the Mexican-American War (1846–1848) he served in the storeship Southampton. He was promoted to master on October 9, 1853, and to lieutenant on June 12, 1854. Webb’s sister married another naval officer, John Randolph Tucker, who also subsequently served in the Confederate Navy. Following the secession of his home state of Virginia, Webb resigned his commission on May 17, 1861, and in June was commissioned a lieutenant in the Confederate Navy. Following brief service at Fernandina, Florida, he was assigned to the Richmond Station during 1861–1862. During the March 8–9, 1862, battles in Hampton Roads, Webb commanded the armed tug Teaser. Later in 1862 Webb was assigned to Charleston, South Carolina. Promoted to commander in April 1863, he received command of Confederate naval forces in the Savannah, Georgia, area. Webb was in command of the Confederate ironclad Atlanta when it ran aground and was captured during an engagement with the Union Passaic-class monitors Nahant and Weehawken under Captain John Rodgers on June 17, 1863. Webb was then held as a prisoner of war at Fort Warren in Boston Harbor, Massachusetts, for more than a year. He was paroled in September

750 |â•‡Welles, Gideon

1864 and exchanged in October 1864. He then served as commanding officer of the Confederate ironclad Richmond in the James River. With the end of the war, Webb returned to his wife’s family estate of Mannsfield in Goochland County, Virginia. In subsequent census information his occupation is listed as “farmer.” Webb died at Mannsfield on December 1, 1881. Spencer C. Tucker See also Atlanta, CSS; Fort Warren, Massachusetts; Hampton Roads, Battle of; James River; Passaic-Class Monitors; Richmond, CSS; Richmond, Virginia; Rodgers, John; Tucker, John Randolph; Wassaw Sound, Battle of

References Coski, John M. Capital Navy: The Men, Ships and Operations of the James River Squadron. Campbell, CA: Savas, 1996. Johnson, Robert Erwin. Rear Admiral John Rodgers, 1812–1882. Annapolis, MD: U.S. Naval Institute, 1967. Register of Officers of the Confederate States Navy, 1861–1865: As Compiled and Revised by the Office of Naval Records and Library, United States Navy Department, 1931, from All Available Data. With a new introduction by John M. Carroll. Mattituck, NY: J. M. Carroll, 1981. [Originally published by the Naval Record and Library, U.S. Navy Department, in 1898 and revised in 1931.] Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Welles, Gideon Birth Date: July 1, 1802 Death Date: February 11, 1878 U.S. secretary of the navy (1861–1869). Born on July 1, 1802, in Glastonbury, Connecticut, Gideon Welles came from a prosperous family, his father being a shipbuilder and West Indies merchant. Welles received an excellent education, first at the Episcopal Academy at Cheshire (one of his classmates was future admiral Andrew H. Foote) and then at Captain Alden Partridge’s military institute at Norwich, Vermont (later Norwich University). Welles then became involved in journalism and politics. Welles associated himself with John M. Niles in publishing the Hartford Times and Weekly Advertizer, the only Jeffersonian newspaper in Connecticut. Welles took a leading role in organizing the Democratic Party in Connecticut and was an ardent supporter of Andrew Jackson for the presidency in the election of 1828. When Jackson won, Welles helped advise him on political patronage regarding Connecticut. In 1835 Welles became comptroller of Connecticut, a post he again held in the 1840s. In 1836 he was postmaster of Hartford, and the next year he was elected to the state legislature. He backed Martin Van Buren for the presidency in

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1844, but when James K. Polk won the nomination, Welles shifted his support to him. Polk won the election, and at the end of 1845 he offered Welles the post of chief of the naval Bureau of Provisions and Clothing. There was some opposition among naval officers to a civilian in this position, but Polk persisted, and Welles quieted concerns by doing an admirable job. He held the position during the MexicanAmerican War (1846–1848), from April 1846 until new Whig president Zachary Taylor removed him in 1849. Welles returned to Connecticut in the autumn of 1849 and wrote for a number of Democratic journals. He opposed the Fugitive Slave Law Gideon Welles of Connecticut was the U.S. and broke with the Democratic Party secretary of the navy during 1861–1869. over the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Welles Welles proved an extraordinarily able administrator. A good judge of people, he opposed fellow Democrat Franklin appointed able subordinates. Welles oversaw Pierce’s ambiguous stance on slavery, ship procurement, the development of and when the new Republican Party Union naval strategy, and personnel assignformed in 1855, Welles became the ments. (Library of Congress) first Republican candidate for governor of Connecticut. Although he failed to win the 1856 election, in May 1860 he was a member of the Connecticut delegation to the national Republican convention and contributed significantly to the nomination of Abraham Lincoln for the presidency. Certainly Welles was one of Lincoln’s top choices for his cabinet, and shortly after becoming president, Lincoln appointed him secretary of the navy on March 5, 1861. This proved a very astute choice, and not just because Welles had more experience with the department than any of his predecessors. Welles took over a department in disarray. Morale was quite low throughout the navy. Many of the department’s clerks were openly hostile to the government, and Welles’s predecessor, Isaac Toucey, had allowed many officers from the South to resign. Others had been fired, and the officer corps was thus at about only half strength. Some of those in key posts who remained were of dubious loyalty, including chief of the Bureau of Ordnance Captain George Magruder and commander of the Washington Navy Yard Captain Franklin Buchanan. The navy was far from ready for war. In early 1861 it had about 90 ships, designed to carry a total of 2,415 guns, but only 42 of them were in commission,

752 |â•‡Welles, Gideon

and Toucey had scattered most of these on foreign station. At the start of the war the home squadron numbered only 12 vessels mounting a total of 187 guns. The navy clearly needed a strong hand and effective leadership and required these immediately. Welles had these qualities in ample measure and was certainly one of the great U.S. secretaries of the navy. A capable administrator, he was not afraid to experiment with new ideas; direct in his dealings with others, he was also a good judge of people. He appointed such capable individuals as Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gustavus Vasa Fox and Chief Clerk William Faxon. Welles also oversaw the development of naval strategy and the direction of operations. He seems to have had the respect and loyalty of the officers in the U.S. Navy. The first major problem Welles faced was securing ships. To enforce the blockade of the Confederate coast (proclaimed by Lincoln on April 19), the Navy Department had to convert its small and, for the most part, obsolete collection of ships into an effective force. Welles immediately launched a large naval construction program. This included building ironclads, but for immediate use the navy purchased ships of all types and assigned them to blockade duty. By midsummer the Union blockade of some 3,500 miles of the southern Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts was well under way. By 1865 the U.S. Navy, with 700 vessels of all types, including 60 ironclads, was the second largest in the world, behind only Great Britain. Another problem was manning the ships. In this regard Welles recruited a large number of African Americans. Ultimately they made up about 16 percent of U.S. Navy personnel. Under Welles the number of seamen and officers went from 7,600 men to some 51,500. Welles served until the end of the administration of Lincoln’s successor Andrew Johnson and oversaw the shrinkage of the U.S. Navy back to peacetime size. Welles left office on March 4, 1869. His tenure as secretary is the longest in the history of the Navy Department. Welles remained active in retirement. He spent part of his time editing the very detailed diary he kept while in office; this sheds much light on the inner workings of the federal government under Lincoln and Johnson as well as on the U.S. Navy during the Civil War. The diary was published after Welles’s death, which occurred at Hartford, Connecticut, on February 11, 1878. Spencer C. Tucker See also African American Sailors; Blockade Board; Blockade of the Confederacy; Buchanan, Franklin; Foote, Andrew Hull; Fox, Gustavus Vasa; Ironclad Board, U.S. Navy; Lincoln, Abraham; Navy, U.S.; Seamen, Recruitment of; Strategy, Union Naval; Toucey, Isaac

References Niven, John. “Gideon Welles.” In American Secretaries of the Navy, Vol. 1, 1775–1913, edited by Paolo Coletta, 321–361. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1980.

West Gulf Blockading Squadronâ•‡ | 753

Niven, John. Gideon Welles, Lincoln’s Secretary of the Navy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973. Welles, Gideon. Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy under Lincoln and Johnson. Edited by John T. Morse. 3 vols. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1911. West, Richard S., Jr. Gideon Welles: Lincoln’s Navy Department. Indianapolis: BobbsMerrill, 1943.

Western Gunboat Flotilla See Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy

West Gulf Blockading Squadron One of two Union Navy blockading squadrons along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. At the beginning of the Civil War, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles established three blockading squadrons, among them the Gulf Blockading Squadron, which covered the Confederate coastline from Key West, Florida, to Brownsville, Texas. In late 1861 the Navy Department decided to split the Gulf Blockading Squadron into two separate squadrons. This went into effect formally on February 20, 1862, when the Gulf Blockading Squadron was split into the East Gulf Blockading Squadron and the West Gulf Blockading Squadron. Captain William McKean, who had commanded the Gulf Blockading Squadron, took command of the eastern squadron, with responsibility from Key West to Pensacola; Captain David G. Farragut took command of the western squadron that covered the coast from Pensacola to the Rio Grande. Because it had responsibility for blockading New Orleans, Mobile, and Galveston, the West Gulf Blockading Squadron was by far the more important of the two. It supported Union operations along the western half of the Gulf Coast, including these three places. Farragut directed the Union operation that pushed past the Mississippi River forts to capture New Orleans in April 1862. Ships of the squadron then operated on the Mississippi as far north as above Vicksburg, Mississippi. The squadron also supported the Union operation against Galveston, Texas, in the autumn of 1862 that culminated in the Union defeat at the Battle of Galveston on January 1, 1863. Its ships won the Battle of Mobile Bay of August 5, 1864, effectively closing off the last major Confederate Gulf Coast port of Mobile, Alabama. Commodore James S. Palmer succeeded Farragut on November 30, 1864. The squadron’s last commander was Commodore Henry K. Thatcher on February 23, 1865. The West Gulf Blockading Squadron was merged into the Gulf Squadron on July 13, 1865. Spencer C. Tucker

754 |â•‡White River Expedition, U.S. Navy See also Blockade of the Confederacy; East Gulf Blockading Squadron; Farragut, David Glasgow; Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s Run Past; Galveston, Battle of; Gulf Blockading Squadron; Gulf of Mexico; McKean, William Wister; Mississippi River; Mobile Bay, Battle of; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; Palmer, James Shedden; Thatcher, Henry Knox; Vicksburg Campaign; Welles, Gideon

References Frazier, Donald S. Cottonclads! The Battle of Galveston and the Defense of the Texas Coast. Abilene, TX: McWhiney Foundation Press, 1998. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. Wise, Stephen R. Lifeline of the Confederacy: Blockade Running during the Civil War. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988.

White River Expedition, U.S. Navy Start Date: June 23, 1862 End Date: June 27, 1862 On June 13, 1862, only a week after Memphis had been secured, Flag Officer Charles H. Davis ordered Commander A. H. Kilty to proceed with the river ironclads Mound City and St. Louis and the timberclad Lexington up the White River, a tributary of the Mississippi. The expedition had been requested by Major General Henry W. Halleck, commander of the U.S. Army Department of the Missouri, to open communications with the army on the White River. Confederate ships had also been reported operating on the river. Two days later Davis dispatched after them one transport with supplies and another carrying Colonel Graham N. Fitch’s 46th Indiana Regiment. The timberclad Conestoga provided convoy. On June 14 the Mound City captured the Clara Dolsen, a large Confederate side-wheeler steamer that was soon incorporated into the Union Navy. On the morning of June 16, with the Conestoga and transports having joined the other Union ships, the detachment proceeded to a point upriver about 5 miles from St. Charles, Arkansas (located approximately 115 miles southeast of Little Rock and 110 miles southwest of West Memphis). There they anchored for the night. Early the next morning, June 17, the ships again got under way, with the Mound City leading and the transports bringing up the rear. Just north of St. Charles about 80 miles from the river mouth, the Confederates had two gunboats—the Maurepas and Pontchartrain—and two transports. There they sank in the river the Maurepas of nearly 400 tons and both transports. Ordnance from the Maurepas and guns already ashore gave the defenders there two 42-pounder rifled seacoast howitzers, two 12-pounder bronze pieces, and two small Parrott rifles. These were concealed in the woods and on a bluff ashore.

White River Expedition, U.S. Navyâ•‡ | 755

As the Union ships approached, they came under fire from Confederate pickets ashore. The ships returned fire, landed Colonel Fitch’s regiment, and continued on. Rounding a bend, the Union sailors could spot the sunken Confederate ships about a mile upriver. Continuing upstream, the Mound City soon came under fire from the shore battery. At about 600 yards from the obstacles, a well-aimed Confederate shot from one of the rifled guns penetrated on the port side of the casemate of the Mound City, killing three men outright and bursting the ironclad’s steam drum. All Union boats were immediately utilized to rescue its crew, while the Mound City drifted across the river until it was brought under tow by the Conestoga. The St. Louis and Lexington moved forward and, after silencing the lower Confederate battery, concentrated on the guns on the bluff. Meanwhile, several dozen Confederate soldiers opened fire on the Union sailors in the water. A short time afterward and only 10 minutes after the Mound City had been hit, Colonel Fitch signaled from shore for the Union ships to cease fire, and the Union infantry then charged the remaining Confederate battery, killing 7 or 8 of the defenders and suffering no losses of their own. They also took 29 prisoners including Confederate Navy captain Joseph Fry, who had commanded the position. The Mound City was completely hors de combat, and personnel losses on it were devastating. Lieutenant Wilson McGunnegle reported that “to endeavor to describe the howling of the wounded and the moaning of the dying is far beyond the power of my feeble pen.” Of its 175-man crew, 82 had died by June 19 in the bursting of the steam drum, another 43 had been shot and killed in the water or drowned, and 25 others were scalded and burned, including Commander Kilty. Only 3 officers and 22 men escaped unscathed. Towed to St. Charles, the Mound City was repaired. The remainder of the Union ships proceeded up the White River for another 63 miles and 151 miles from the river mouth to a place known as Crooked Point Cut-off, but finding no sign of Confederate military activity and encountering dangerously shallow water, the ships returned to the mouth of the White River on June 27 and then proceeded on to Memphis. At the same time, both Major General Ulysses S. Grant and Halleck agreed on the need to increase the Union military presence so as to ensure continued control of the White River, and on June 27 five transports convoyed by the Conestoga departed Memphis to move down the Mississippi and then up the White to that end. Davis recommended the employment of small light-draft steamers on such duty, to be armed with boat howitzers and given additional protection around their machinery and pilot houses to help protect them from rifled shot. Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Conestoga, USS; Davis, Charles Henry; Kilty, Augustus H.; Lexington, USS; Memphis, First Battle of; Mississippi River; Mound City, USS; Riverine Warfare; Timberclads

756 |â•‡Wilkes, Charles


Wilkes, Charles Birth Date: April 3, 1798 Death Date: January 8, 1877 U.S. Navy officer. Born in New York City on April 3, 1798, Charles Wilkes joined the merchant marine in 1815. On January 1, 1818, he received an appointment to the navy as a midshipman and completed several Mediterranean tours. He was promoted to lieutenant on April 28, 1826, and was considered so adept in mathematics that he was assigned as chief of the Depot of Charts and Instruments at Washington, D.C., in 1830. At this time the government was amassing resources for a global exploratory expedition, and in 1838 Wilkes was appointed to lead it. The expedition departed Hampton Roads, Virginia, in August 1838, with Wilkes commanding the flagship sloop Vincennes. He was accompanied by five smaller ships and a number of scientists and other specialists. Rounding Cape Horn, the squadron made for the islands of the South Pacific before proceeding on to Australia. Having surveyed and charted much of this area, Wilkes turned south to Antarctica, where he discovered a barren 1,500-mile-long coastline, since christened Wilkes Land. After a prolonged stop in Hawaii the expedition proceeded to Oregon, where Wilkes’s observations did much to bolster U.S. territorial claims. The squadron then sailed west to the Philippines, Cape Town, and Brazil before returning home, having traversed 80,000 miles. The 5,000 plant and animal specimens retrieved subsequently served as the basis for the Smithsonian Institution. For his work he was awarded a gold medal by the Geographical Society of London. Despite his achievement, Wilkes was known throughout the service as a demanding perfectionist with little tact. No sooner had he arrived home in June 1842 than he was brought up on charges of abuse by fellow officers. A court of inquiry cleared him of all charges except illegally punishing some of his crew, for which he was reprimanded. He served on the coast survey during 1842–1843 and was promoted to commander on July 13, 1843, and to captain on September 14, 1855. After his return from the Pacific, Wilkes worked on publishing his findings. These were to have been published in 28 quarto volumes, but only 19 appeared. He was the author of 8 of them. At the beginning of 1861 Wilkes had been in the navy for 43 years: 9 years in sea service, 26 years in shore assignments, and 7 years awaiting orders in a navy with too many officers for available billets.

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Following the onset of the Civil War in April 1861, Wilkes participated in the destruction of the Norfolk Navy Yard before assuming command of the screw frigate San Jacinto. On November 8, 1861, Wilkes stopped the British steamer Trent at sea and removed two Confederate diplomats, James M. Mason and John Slidell. Although Â�Wilkes was initially feted in the North for his action, the ensuing crisis almost led to war with Britain. President Abraham Lincoln weathered the diplomatic uproar by releasing the two men. In 1862 Wilkes commanded the James River Flotilla and shelled City Point. He was promoted to commodore on July 16, 1862. In 1863 Wilkes took charge of the West Indies Squadron, but he proved so high-handed in his actions U.S. Navy Captain Charles Wilkes was an toward British ships that Secretary of accomplished seaman and explorer, but he the Navy Gideon Welles recalled him. was also vain and headstrong and his A war of words ensued that culminated disregard of orders proved costly on in a second court-martial for disobedi- occasion. His decision to remove two Confederate diplomats from the British ence, disrespect, and conduct unbecomsteamer Trent almost led to war with Britain. ing an officer for Wilkes’s comments (Library of Congress) to Welles. Found guilty, Wilkes was demoted to captain and suspended for three years, which was then reduced to one year. Wilkes was retired on June 25, 1864, because of age. He was advanced to rear admiral on the reserve list on August 6, 1866. Five years later, at the age of 73, he began writing his lengthy memoirs. He died at Washington, D.C., on January 8, 1877. John C. Fredriksen See also Coast Survey, U.S.; James River; Lincoln, Abraham; Mason, James Murray; Norfolk Navy Yard; Slidell, John; Trent Affair; Welles, Gideon

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Morgan, James, et al., eds. Autobiography of Rear Admiral Charles Wilkes, 1798–1877. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1978. Smith, Geoffrey S. “Charles Wilkes: The Naval Officer as Explorer and Diplomat.” In Captains of the Old Steam Navy, edited by James C. Bradford, 64–86. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1986.

758 |â•‡Wilkinson, John Stanton, William. The Great United States Exploring Expedition of 1838–1842. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975. Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001.

Wilkinson, John Birth Date: November 6, 1821 Death Date: December 29, 1891 Confederate Navy officer and blockade-runner, one of the most successful of the Civil War. John Wilkinson was born in Norfolk, Virginia, on November 6, 1821. He secured a midshipman’s warrant in the U.S. Navy on December 18, 1837. Wilkinson was promoted to passed midshipman on June 19, 1843; to master on June 25, 1850; and to lieutenant on November 5, 1850. Much of his time was spent with the U.S. Coast Survey, part of it as commander of the steamer Corwin. Wilkinson resigned from the U.S. Navy on April 6, 1861, but his resignation was not accepted, and he is recorded in U.S. Navy records as “dismissed” on April 20. As an officer in the short-lived Virginia State Navy, he was first assigned to the construction of Fort Powhatan south of Richmond on the James River, and he then commanded a battery on Aquia Creek, which empties into the Potomac River. On June 10, 1861, Wilkinson received a commission as a lieutenant in the Confederate States Navy. In February 1862 he was transferred to the New Orleans station, and after initial command of the steamer gunboat Jackson, he became the executive officer of the ironclad Louisiana. The ironclad was incomplete and was thus positioned as a floating battery along the river bank during Flag Officer David G. Farragut’s passage of Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip on April 24, 1862. With the capture of New Orleans and the surrender of the forts, the Louisiana was scuttled on April 28, and Wilkinson was taken prisoner along with most of the rest of its crew. Wilkinson was held at Fort Warren in Boston Harbor during May–August 1862. Freed on August 5 as a result of a prisoner exchange, Wilkinson was dispatched to Britain with orders to acquire a steamer and then transport vitally needed supplies to the Confederacy. On October 15, 1862, Wilkinson bought the side-wheel steamer Giraffe, which he subsequently renamed the Robert E. Lee. During an 11-month span Wilkinson made 21 runs through the Union blockade, carrying some 7,000 bales of cotton valued at $2 million through the blockade and returning with badly needed war supplies, making him and his ship among the most famous of the blockade-runners. These runs were mostly to and from Wilmington, North Carolina, and Nassau in the Bahamas. Wilkinson’s success was due in part to his

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great knowledge of the American eastern seaboard and waters off the Bahamas through his prior work in the Coast Survey. He was also adept at improvisation under pressure, as in August 1863 when he outran the powerful Union screw sloop Iroquois by soaking part of his cotton cargo in turpentine and burning it in the boilers to increase speed. Wilkinson’s blockade-running career ended in September 1863 when he was transferred from the Robert E. Lee. Among his subsequent assignments was to take charge of an expedition to free Confederate prisoners held on Johnson’s Island in Lake Erie. This would require capturing the Union steamer Michigan, but Wilkinson aborted this mission in December 1863 when Union authorities learned of the plan. He returned to Wilmington in the blockade-runner Whisper. Subsequent duties included outfitting the ironclad Raleigh. He also planned an operation to free Confederate prisoners held at Point Lookout, Maryland, but this plan was also discovered and aborted. Wilkinson then served in the Office of Orders and Detail, working to improve port facilities for blockade-runners. In the late summer of 1864 Wilkinson assumed command of the blockade-Â�runner Edith, which he then fitted out as the Confederate commerce raider Chickamauga. In a 12-day cruise, he took seven prizes. In late December 1864 he took command of the steamer Tallahassee, which he renamed the Chameleon. At this point in the war Wilmington was the sole Confederate Atlantic port open for blockaderunners, and Wilkinson sailed the ship to Bermuda to secure supplies for the Army of Northern Virginia. When he returned he did not know that Union forces had captured Fort Fisher, and his ship was almost taken in the harbor before he was able to escape. Wilkinson then took the Chameleon to Liverpool and turned it over to Confederate agent Commander James D. Bulloch. At the end of the war Wilkinson was refused amnesty because of his role in commerce raiding. He moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia, until 1871, when he was granted amnesty and moved to Amelia County, Virginia. A surveying business and a school for women he established there both failed. Wilkinson died almost destitute in Annapolis, Maryland, on December 29, 1891. Eric W. Osborne See also Blockade-Runners; Bulloch, James Dunwody; Chickamauga, CSS; Coast Survey, U.S.; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Farragut, David Glasgow; Fort Fisher Campaign; Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s Run Past; Fort Warren, Massachusetts; Ironclads, Confederate; James River; Louisiana, CSS; Michigan, USS; New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of; Potomac River; Raleigh, CSS; Richmond, Virginia; Tallahassee, CSS

References Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Cochran, Hamilton. Blockade Runners of the Confederacy. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1958.

760 |â•‡Wilmington, North Carolina, Engagements at McNeil, Jim. Masters of the Shoals: Tales of the Cape Fear Pilots Who Ran the Union Blockade. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2003. Register of Officers of the Confederate States Navy, 1861–1865: As Compiled and Revised by the Office of Naval Records and Library, United States Navy Department, 1931, from All Available Data. With a new introduction by John M. Carroll. Mattituck, NY: J. M. Carroll, 1981. [Originally published by the Naval Record and Library, U.S. Navy Department, in 1898 and revised in 1931.] Wilkinson, John. The Narrative of a Blockade Runner. New York: Sheldon and Company, 1877. Wise, Stephen R. Lifeline of the Confederacy: Blockade Running during the Civil War. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988.

Wilmington, North Carolina, Engagements at Start Date: February 12, 1865 End Date: February 22, 1865 Union-Confederate engagements in and around Wilmington, North Carolina, between February 12 and February 22, 1865. The port of Wilmington, located on North Carolina’s southeastern coast along the Cape Fear River, was a key city for the Confederacy. Wilmington had a large industrial base and was the last remaining major Confederate port for blockade-runners and a principal supply link by rail for the Army of Northern Virginia at Petersburg. As such, Wilmington was a critically important city for the South, the loss of which would seriously impact the Confederate war effort. The fall of Fort Fisher late on January 15, 1865, completed the first step in the Union capture of Wilmington. General Braxton Bragg, the Confederate commander in Wilmington, had only 7,600 men to defend the city. Major General Robert Frederick Hoke’s division of three brigades manned entrenchments at Sugar Loaf, high ground located across the narrow Federal Point peninsula on the east bank of the Cape Fear River. Brigadier General Johnson Hagood meanwhile defended Fort Anderson on the west bank with 2,300 men. On January 28, 1865, Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant met with the Union military leaders on the Cape Fear River and placed Major General John McAllister Schofield in command of the 15,000 Union soldiers near Fort Fisher. Grant ordered Schofield to secure Wilmington, with Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter’s fleet in support. Four engagements from February 11 to 22, 1865—two on each side of the river—sealed Wilmington’s fate. On February 10 President Jefferson Davis ordered Bragg to return to Richmond, Virginia, leaving Hoke in command. The next day Schofield conducted a reconnaissance in force of Hoke’s position at Sugar Loaf. The Confederate defenses held

Wilmington, North Carolina, Engagements atâ•‡ | 761

firm, and Schofield decided to shift his main effort to the river’s west bank. From February 14 to 16, 1865, four Union brigades under Major General Jacob Dolson Cox crossed the Cape Fear River. The terrain on that side of the river contained numerous swamps and thick pine forests but few roads. Fort Anderson’s land face consisted of entrenchments stretching west from the river for more than a mile. On February 18, 1865, supported by gunfire from Porter’s ships, Schofield attacked the fort from the south and outflanked the defenders on the west. Hagood’s subsequent withdrawal early on the morning of February 19, 1865, laid open Hoke’s west flank and rear to Porter’s fleet. Hoke then withdrew to a prepared defensive line three miles south of Wilmington. Hagood retreated eight miles north and established a new line behind the last defensible terrain before Wilmington, the 50-yard-wide Town Creek. On February 20, 1865, Cox outflanked Hagood’s defensive line on the east by crossing Town Creek with three brigades on an abandoned flatboat. Two of these brigades, totaling 3,000 soldiers, attacked and overwhelmed four South Carolina regiments, totaling no more than 500 men. The Confederates suffered approximately 350–400 casualties, primarily captured prisoners. Few escaped to join the remainder of Hagood’s command in its retreat to Wilmington. On this same afternoon, Major General Alfred Howe Terry attacked one of Hoke’s Confederate brigades at Forks Road. The attack was repulsed, and desultory firing continued at this location for the next 36 hours. Hoke attempted to forestall Terry for as long as possible to allow Confederate property to be withdrawn from Wilmington. Bragg returned to Wilmington on February 21, 1865, and soon realized that the city must be evacuated. He ordered the withdrawal to commence at 1:00 a.m. on February 22, 1865. The Union campaign to capture Wilmington resulted in only 200 Union casualties. With Wilmington now in enemy hands, Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia was starved of essential supplies. For the remainder of the war, Wilmington’s port and railroads served as important transportation assets supporting the operations of Union major generals Schofield and William Tecumseh Sherman in North Carolina. John Robert Kennedy See also Amphibious Warfare; Blockade of the Confederacy; Blockade-Runners; Davis, Jefferson Finis; Fort Fisher Campaign; Porter, David Dixon; Riverine Warfare

References Fonvielle, Chris E., Jr. The Wilmington Campaign: Last Rays of Departing Hope. Mechanicsville, PA: Stackpole Books, 1997. Moore, Mark A. The Wilmington Campaign and the Battles for Fort Fisher. Mason City, IA: Savas, 1999. Walker, James L., Jr. Rebel Gibraltar: Fort Fisher and Wilmington, C.S.A. Wilmington, NC: Dram Tree Books, 2005.

762 |â•‡Winslow, John Ancrum

Winslow, John Ancrum Birth Date: November 19, 1811 Death Date: September 29, 1873 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Wilmington, North Carolina, on November 19, 1811, John Ancrum Winslow secured an appointment as a midshipman on February 1, 1827. He was promoted to passed midshipman on June 10, 1833, and to lieutenant on December 9, 1839. Winslow was assigned to the Brazil Squadron before fighting in the Mexican-American War (1846–1848). After taking part in the capture of Tabasco, he received his first independent command, the schooner Union. On December 16, 1846, the Union ran onto a reef near Veracruz and was a total loss. Transferred to the frigate Raritan, Winslow struck up a friendship with fellow officer Raphael Semmes. Between 1849 and 1855 Winslow divided his time between the Boston Navy Yard and the Pacific Squadron. Promoted to commander on September 14, 1855, he was serving as inspector of lighthouses at Boston when the Civil War began. In a naval career of almost 34 years, Winslow had served 15 years in sea duty and 8 years in assignments ashore. Ten years had been spent awaiting orders in a navy with too many officers for available assignments. Winslow was assigned to the Western Flotilla under Flag Officer Andrew Hull Foote in October 1861. On December 8 while commanding the ironclad St. Louis, Winslow was seriously injured in an accident when a chain snapped, but he insisted on returning to duty in only a few weeks. He was promoted to captain effective July 16, 1862. When the more junior Captain David D. Porter was given command of the Mississippi Squadron as an acting rear admiral, Winslow was reassigned to the East. On April 8, 1863, Winslow assumed command of the steam sloop Kearsarge in European waters with orders to search for Confederate raiders. In February 1864 the Kearsarge blockCaptain John A. Winslow was the able aded CSS Rappahannock at Calais, commander of the U.S. Navy steam sloop France. In June 1864 Winslow was Kearsarge that engaged and sank the informed that the Confederate raider Confederate commerce raider Alabama off Alabama, commanded by his former Cherbourg, France on June 19, 1864. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images) friend Semmes, was at Cherbourg,

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France, and Winslow hurried there. On June 19, 1864, the Kearsarge defeated and sank the Alabama in an engagement off the French coast. The victory brought Winslow promotion to commodore in early 1865, with the date of rank effective June 19, 1864. He spent the remainder of the war cruising for other Confederate raiders. During 1866–1867 Winslow commanded the Gulf Squadron. He was on board duty and then commanded the Portsmouth Navy Yard during 1869–1870. Advanced to rear admiral on March 2, 1870, Winslow assumed command of the Pacific Squadron until the summer of 1872. Poor health necessitated his retirement in 1872, but a special act of Congress enabled him to draw full pay. Winslow died in Boston on September 29, 1873. Spencer C. Tucker See also Alabama, CSS; Alabama vs. Kearsarge; Baron de Kalb, USS; Boston Navy Yard; Commerce Raiding, Confederate; Foote, Andrew Hull; Kearsarge, USS; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Porter, David Dixon; Portsmouth Navy Yard; Rappahannock, CSS; Semmes, Raphael

References Ditzel, Paul C. The Ruthless Exploits of Admiral John Winslow. New Albany, IN: F. B. H. Publications, 1991. Marvel, William. The Alabama and the Kearsarge: The Sailor’s Civil War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996. Thompson, Kenneth E. Civil War Commodores and Admirals: A Biographical Directory of All Eighty-Eight Union and Confederate Navy Officers Who Attained Commissioned Flag Rank during the War. Portland, ME: Thompson Group, 2001.

Wood, John Taylor Birth Date: August 13, 1830 Death Date: July 19, 1904 Confederate Navy officer. John Taylor Wood was born at Fort Snelling, Iowa Territory, on August 13, 1830. He was the grandson of President Zachary Taylor and the nephew of Jefferson Davis, who became president of the Confederate States of America in 1861. Wood entered the U.S. Navy as a midshipman on April 7, 1847, and graduated from the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis as a passed midshipman on June 10, 1853. He returned to the academy in 1855 as assistant commandant and was commissioned a lieutenant on September 16, 1855. Wood went to sea in June 1858 but returned to the Naval Academy as an instructor of naval tactics and gunnery on February 14, 1860. Wood refused to move with the Naval Academy to Newport, Rhode Island, at the start of the Civil War in April 1861. In September 1861 he moved his family south and was commissioned a lieutenant in the Confederate States Navy on October 4, 1861. In January 1862 he was assigned to the Confederate ironclad Virginia.

764 |â•‡Worden, John Lorimer

Following the Battle of Hampton Roads (March 8–9, 1862) and the First Battle of Drewry’s Bluff (May 5), Wood secured permission to begin conducting raids on Union targets using small boats and raiding parties. Wood’s men often transported their small boats overland with horse-drawn wagons. Using stealth and surprise, Wood’s raids were usually successful. Two of his better-known actions were an August 1863 raid in the Rappahannock River against the U.S. Navy gunboats Satellite and Reliance and the February 1864 raid on the screw steamer combatant Underwriter at New Bern, North Carolina. On January 26, 1863, Confederate president Davis commissioned Wood a colonel in the army. Wood served as liaison officer between the two branches. In August 1864 Wood took command of the commerce raider Tallahassee and took 33 prizes. In March 1865 he returned to Richmond, Virginia, and accompanied Davis when he fled the city in April. Although captured, Wood escaped and made his way to Havana, Cuba. Leaving Havana in June 1865, he arrived in Canada on July 15. His family settled in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he became a successful commerce and marine insurance agent. Although Wood visited the United States several times, he never returned permanently. He died on July 19, 1904, in Halifax. Andrew Duppstadt See also Davis, Jefferson Finis; Drewry’s Bluff, First Battle of; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Naval Academy, United States; Tallahassee, CSS; Underwriter, USS, Confederate Expedition against; Virginia, CSS

References Butler, Lindley S. Pirates, Privateers, and Rebel Raiders of the Carolina Coast. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000. Callahan, Edward W., ed. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900. 1901; reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1969. Register of Officers of the Confederate States Navy, 1861–1865: As Compiled and Revised by the Office of Naval Records and Library, United States Navy Department, 1931, from All Available Data. With a new introduction by John M. Carroll. Mattituck, NY: J. M. Carroll, 1981. [Originally published by the Naval Record and Library, U.S. Navy Department, in 1898 and revised in 1931.] Robbins, Peggy. “By Land and By Sea.” Civil War Times Illustrated 37(1) (1998): 42–45, 53–54, 56, and 59. Shingleton, Royce Gordon. John Taylor Wood: Sea Ghost of the Confederacy. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1979.

Worden, John Lorimer Birth Date: March 12, 1818 Death Date: October 18, 1897 U.S. Navy officer. Born in Westchester County, New York, on March 12, 1818, John Lorimer Worden entered the U.S. Navy as a midshipman on January 12, 1834.

Worden, John Lorimerâ•‡ | 765

He was promoted to passed midshipman on July 16, 1840; to master on August 15, 1846; and to lieutenant on November 30, 1846. Worden was serving in the Naval Observatory when he was charged with delivering orders to Union forces at Pensacola, Florida. Confederate authorities took Worden prisoner in Montgomery, Alabama, on April 13, 1861, as he returned to Washington overland. He remained a prisoner until he was exchanged in November. Recovering his health, Worden was assigned to command the ironclad Monitor on January 16, 1862, and he had charge of it during its battle with Lieutenant John L. Worden commanded the the Confederate ironclad Virginia in U.S. Navy ironclad Monitor during its Hampton Roads, Virginia, on March engagement with the Confederate ironclad 9, 1862. Worden was wounded dur- Virginia on March 9, 1862. Wounded during ing the fight when a Confederate shell the battle, Worden was forced to relinquish command. He returned to service in late exploded outside the pilothouse. Tem1862 and was promoted to rear admiral porarily blinded, he was replaced for after the war. (Library of Congress) the remainder of the battle by executive officer Lieutenant Samuel D. Greene. Worden became a national hero, and President Abraham Lincoln visited him at his bedside. A resolution in Congress brought Worden a promotion to commander on July 16, 1862. Although Worden remained blind in one eye and experienced physical pain for the rest of his life, he recovered sight in the other eye and returned to duty late in 1862. Assuming command of the ironclad Montauk in October, Worden participated in the bombardment of Fort McAllister on January 27, 1863; the destruction of the privateer Rattlesnake on February 28; and Rear Admiral Samuel Du Pont’s assault on Charleston on April 7. Worden was promoted to captain on February 3, 1863. He left the Montauk after the assault on Charleston and for the remainder of the war supervised the construction of ironclads. Worden became a commodore on May 27, 1868, and a rear admiral on November 20, 1872. He served as the commander of the European Squadron during 1873–1877 and retired from the navy on December 23, 1886. Worden died on October 18, 1897, in Washington, D.C. Charles James Wexler

766 |â•‡Worden, John Lorimer See also Charleston, South Carolina, Du Pont’s Attack on; Du Pont, Samuel Francis; Fort McAllister, Georgia, Union Attacks on; Fort Pickens, Florida; Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, Relief Efforts and Beginning of the Civil War; Hampton Roads, Battle of; Lincoln, Abraham; Monitor, USS; Pensacola Navy Yard; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; Virginia, CSS

References Davis, William C. Duel between the First Ironclads. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975. Holzer, Harold, and Tim Mulligan, eds. The Battle of Hampton Roads: New Perspectives on the USS Monitor and CSS Virginia. New York: Fordham University Press, 2006. Worden, John L., et al. The Monitor and the Merrimac. New York: Harper Bros., 1912.

Y Yazoo Pass Expedition Start Date: February 1863 End Date: April 1863 Union operation to move troops against Vicksburg from the north by way of Yazoo Pass and Moon Lake via the connected Coldwater, Tallahatchie, and Yazoo rivers that was halted by the Confederates in mid-March and early April 1863 at Fort Pemberton, near Greenwood, Mississippi. Rear Admiral David D. Porter, commander of the U.S. Navy Mississippi Squadron, believed that his ships could work around east of Vicksburg by these littleused waterways. Just below Helena, Arkansas, some 150 miles north of Vicksburg, Yazoo Pass led from the Mississippi to Moon Lake, which connected with the Coldwater River. The Coldwater in turn emptied into the Tallahatchie River, which combined with the Yalobusha River to form the Yazoo that then joined the Mississippi just north of Vicksburg. Mississippi Delta farmers had used the Yazoo Pass route to trade with Memphis, but the State of Mississippi had ordered construction of a levee at Yazoo Pass to prevent flooding, and this had lowered water levels throughout the region. Union engineers believed that cutting the Yazoo Pass levee would raise water levels to the point that shallow-draft gunboats and transports could navigate the delta waterways. Porter and Major General Ulysses S. Grant hoped that a flotilla of light-draft gunboats, transports, and auxiliaries could then reach a point somewhere above Haynes’ Bluff. On February 3 Union engineers, working under the supervision of Grant’s chief engineer, Lieutenant Colonel James H. Wilson, blew up the levee with explosives. Lieutenant Commander Watson Smith had charge of the Union naval force. It consisted of the ironclads Chillicothe and Baron de Kalb; the gunboats Rattler (flag), Marmora, Signal, Romeo, and Forest Rose; the towboat S. Bayard with three barges of coal; and 13 transports lifting some 6,000 troops under Brigadier General Leonard F. Ross. The expedition got through the pass without much difficulty, but the Coldwater remained obstructed by a great many trees—many of which were deliberately felled by the Confederates—and widespread underwater growth, all of which had to be dragged clear. The going was a bit easier when the expeditionary force reached the larger Tallahatchie. At this point the force was joined by the light-draft gunboat Petrel, which had a 13-inch mortar, and the rams Lyoness and Fulton. 767

768 |â•‡Yazoo Pass Expedition

The Confederates were well aware of Union intentions, and on a narrow neck of land at the confluence of the Tallahatchie and Yalobusha at Greenwood they erected Fort Pemberton. Formed of cotton bales covered with earth and manned by 1,500 men under Major General William W. Loring, the fort commanded the river in either direction. Cutting the levee flooded the area so that the fort was then completely surrounded by water. Most of its half dozen guns were small, but it did contain a very accurate 6.4-inch Whitworth rifle. To further impede the Union approach, the Confederates sank an obstruction in the channel in the form of CSS St. Philip (ex–Star of the West). The Union expedition arrived on March 11. Smith relied primarily on his two ironclads, which he sent against the fort on March 11, 13, and 16. Each time, the ironclads received the worst of the exchange. One Confederate shell penetrated the port side of the Chillicothe, exploding a Union shell and killing 3 men, mortally wounding another, and wounding 10. On the third attempt the Chillicothe was rendered hors de combat, having sustained 22 killed, drowned, or wounded in the three engagements. Smith reported to Porter that the Baron de Kalb was also “severely handled.” Union operations were also affected by the fact that Smith was ill and was forced to yield command to a subordinate. With Union troops unable to land, Ross decided to withdraw. The expeditionary force then encountered Union reinforcements under Brigadier General Isaac F. Quinby. Senior in rank to Ross, Quinby ordered a return to Fort Pemberton. Following other futile attacks, Quinby broke off the effort for good on April 4, with Union forces retracing their steps north to the Mississippi. Porter meanwhile attempted another water route via the Steele’s Bayou Expedition. Jennifer Murray and Spencer C. Tucker See also Amphibious Warfare; Baron de Kalb, USS; Flotilla; Mississippi River; Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy; Porter, David Dixon; Riverine Warfare; Star of the West, USS; Steele’s Bayou Expedition; Vicksburg Campaign; Yazoo River

References Ballard, Michael B. Vicksburg: The Campaign That Opened the Mississippi. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. Bearss, Edwin Cole. The Campaign for Vicksburg: Vicksburg Is the Key. Dayton, OH: Morningside, 1985. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Ser. I, Vol. 24. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1911. Winschel, Terrance J. Vicksburg: Fall of the Confederate Gibraltar. Abilene, TX: McWhiney Foundation Press, 1999.

Yazoo Riverâ•‡ | 769

Yazoo River River located in western Mississippi and formed by the confluence of the Tallahatchie and Yalobusha rivers near Greenwood, Mississippi. The Yazoo River parallels the Mississippi River, running generally south and southwest before emptying into it just north of Vicksburg, Mississippi. The river was named by French explorer René-Robert Cavelier Sieur de La Salle in 1682; the name is derived from a local band of Native Americans known as the Yazoo. The Yazoo River is 180 miles long with only a slight gradient, meaning that its flow is usually slow. The large basin or floodplain between the Mississippi River and the Yazoo River is often referred to as the Mississippi Delta. This is not to be confused with the Mississippi River Delta, which lies some 300 miles to the south where the Mississippi flows into the Gulf of Mexico. Because of the low-lying land and the presence of two large rivers within relatively close proximity, portions of the Mississippi Delta are prone to frequent flooding. Over the years, levees and flood walls have been constructed in the region to mitigate the damage caused by floods. The rich soil of the Yazoo and Mississippi River valleys has supported the growth of cotton, which was easily shipped downriver to New Orleans, where it could be distributed to other locations in the United States as well as to foreign countries. In December 1862 USS Cairo, a Union river ironclad, was sunk in the Yazoo by a torpedo (underwater mine). The Yazoo River was critical to Union attempts to capture Vicksburg. The area figured prominently in the unsuccessful Yazoo Pass Expedition of February–April 1863, which was a Union effort to find a navigable passageway via bayous and lakes to reach Vicksburg from the north. Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr. See also Cairo, USS; Mississippi River; Riverine Warfare; Torpedoes; Vicksburg Campaign; Yazoo Pass Expedition

References Ballard, Michael B. Vicksburg: The Campaign That Opened the Mississippi. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. Smith, Frank E. The Yazoo River. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1988. Tucker, Spencer C. Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.


Chronology of the Naval Civil War, 1860–1865

November 1860 15

Lieutenant Thomas A. Craven, commanding a U.S. naval squadron off Key West, Florida, orders landing parties ashore to secure Forts Taylor and Jefferson. Craven, in the frigate Mohawk, seizes Fort Jefferson. Lieutenant Fabius Stanley, commanding the screw steamer Wyandotte, assists in taking Fort Jefferson. These actions secure a key naval harbor on the Gulf of Mexico for the Union.

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U.S. Army major Robert Anderson transfers his troops from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. Anderson begins to fortify the island garrison, but now must be supplied and reinforced via water. The U.S. Revenue Service cutter William Aiken is seized in Charleston Harbor by South Carolina militia.

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The U.S. Navy screw sloop Brooklyn, docked at Norfolk, Virginia, prepares for a relief mission to aid the Union garrison at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. The commercial vessel Star of the West departs New York Harbor laden with supplies and 250 Union troops bound for Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. U.S. Army general Winfield Scott orders USS Brooklyn to remain in Norfolk, Virginia, hoping that Star of the West will cause less controversy. A squadron of U.S. marines is ordered to garrison Fort Washington. The fort overlooks the Potomac River on the Maryland side. 771

772 |â•‡ Chronology of the Naval Civil War, 1860–1865

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Forts Morgan and Gaines, which defend the entrance to Mobile Bay, are seized by secessionist forces. The U.S. steamer Star of the West, under the command of Captain John McGowan, attempts to reinforce Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. The ship is fired upon by artillery batteries on Morris Island and from Fort Moultrie. Cadets from the Citadel participate in the attack, which is the first engagement with a U.S. flagged vessel. The Star of the West is undamaged and returns to New York. Fort Sumter is not reinforced. Major Robert Anderson, commanding Fort Sumter, protests but does not retaliate. Thirty U.S. marines are transferred from the Washington Navy Yard to Fort McHenry in Baltimore Harbor. U.S. forces abandon the Pensacola Navy Yard in Florida and withdraw to Fort Pickens on Santa Rosa Island. The evacuated Pensacola Navy Yard along with Fort Barrancas and Fort McCree are occupied by Florida militia. The U.S. troops refuse to surrender Fort Pickens, which remains in Union hands throughout the war. U.S. Army captain John M. Brannan secures Fort Taylor at Key West, Florida. The fort will become a primary coaling station for the U.S. naval blockade. The U.S. lighthouse tender Alert is captured by Alabama militia at Mobile. Fort Massachusetts, located on Ship Island in Mississippi Sound, is seized by secessionist forces. The island’s location at the mouth of the Mississippi River makes it a strategic base for naval operations. New York governor Edwin Morgan orders guns and ammunition bound for Georgia seized. U.S. marines are armed at the Brooklyn Navy Yard to prevent sabotage from Confederate sympathizers. U.S. Navy commander John A. Dahlgren orders all ordnance removed from the Washington Navy Yard as a precaution against a Confederate attack there. A U.S. Navy flotilla made up of the steam sloop Brooklyn, the sailing sloops Macedonian and St. Louis, and the sailing frigate Sabine get under way with a contingent of Union forces from Fort Monroe, Virginia. The flotilla’s objective is the reinforcement of Fort Pickens, off the coast of Pensacola, Florida. The U.S. Revenue Service cutter Robert McClelland is surrendered to Louisiana forces at New Orleans, despite orders from the U.S. secretary of the treasury to use force if necessary to prevent its seizure.

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Chronology of the Naval Civil War, 1860–1865â•‡ | 773

To avoid further escalation of the secession crisis, Union forces aboard the screw sloop Brooklyn are ordered not to disembark for Fort Pickens, Florida, unless the garrison is attacked. The Lewis Cass, a U.S. Revenue Cutter Service schooner, is surrendered to secessionist forces in Mobile Bay, Alabama. Louisiana authorities seize the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service schooner Washington at New Orleans, along with the U.S. Mint and Customs House in the city.

February 1861 9

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The U.S. flotilla charged with reinforcing Fort Pickens arrives at Pensacola, Florida. In adherence to their orders of January 29, U.S. marines are not disembarked to the fort. The Confederate Congress establishes a Navy Department and declares the Mississippi River a free-trade zone. Stephen R. Mallory, a former senator from Florida, is appointed Confederate secretary of the navy.

March 1861 2 4 7 13

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The U.S. Revenue Cutter Service schooner Henry Dodge is seized at Galveston, Texas. The U.S. Navy Department recalls all but three of its commissioned vessels from foreign ports. Gideon Welles from Hartford, Connecticut, is sworn in as U.S. secretary of the navy. U.S. president Abraham Lincoln orders former U.S. Navy lieutenant Gustavus V. Fox to assess the situation at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor and make recommendations for its relief. The U.S. sailing sloop Isabella, laden with supplies for Pensacola, Florida, is seized by Confederate forces at Mobile, Alabama. Two hundred fifty naval personnel are transferred from the Brooklyn Navy Yard to Norfolk, Virginia, in anticipation of a Confederate attack on the facility should Virginia secede from the Union.

April 1861 3 5

The U.S. sailing schooner Rhoda H. Shannon comes under fire from Confederate batteries on Morris Island in Charleston Harbor. The U.S. Navy screw sloop Pawnee, Revenue Service cutter Harriet Lane, and troop and supply ship Baltic are ordered to relieve Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. Gustavus Fox has charge. President Abraham Lincoln secretly orders the side-wheeler steam frigate Powhatan, which was to have been part of the Fort Sumter


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operation, to instead reinforce Fort Pickens on Santa Rosa Island off Pensacola, Florida. U.S. Navy lieutenant John L. Worden is ordered to Fort Pickens at Pensacola, Florida, via rail. He carries sealed orders for the naval squadron to reinforce the fort. U.S. secretary of the navy Gideon Welles advises the commander of the Norfolk Navy Yard, Captain Charles McCauley, to make preparations to move the steam frigate Merrimack farther north if a Confederate attack appears imminent. At 4:30 a.m. Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor is fired upon by Confederate shore batteries, beginning the Civil War. The U.S. Navy screw sloop Pawnee, Revenue Service cutter Harriet Lane, and steamship Baltic arrive at Charleston Harbor in an effort to reprovision Fort Sumter but are unable to do so. Having received the concealed orders carried by U.S. Navy lieutenant John L. Worden, the naval squadron off Fort Pickens at Pensacola, Florida, begins landing reinforcements. The U.S. Navy sailing frigate Sabine takes up position to blockade Pensacola, Florida. His mission accomplished, U.S. lieutenant John L. Worden is arrested and jailed at Montgomery, Alabama, while trying to return to Washington, D.C. Fort Sumter formally surrenders, and federal troops under Major Robert Anderson are evacuated to the North by the U.S. Navy ships off Charleston Harbor. Seventeen ships with Southern registries are confiscated in New York Harbor. The U.S. Navy side-wheeler frigate Powhatan, with Lieutenant David D. Porter commanding, arrives off Pensacola, Florida, and reinforces Fort Pickens on Santa Rosa Island with 600 troops. This action secures a vital base for the U.S. Gulf Blockading Squadron throughout the war. Confederate president Jefferson Davis invites private vessels to apply for letters of marque. U.S. Navy captain Hiram Paulding is ordered to assume command of the Norfolk Navy Yard and destroy all facilities and supplies there should that prove necessary. In response to Confederate president Jefferson Davis’s issuance of letters of marque and reprisal (privateers), U.S. president Abraham Lincoln issues a formal proclamation declaring all Southern ports from South Carolina to Texas to be under blockade. With Washington, D.C., vulnerable to a possible Confederate attack, U.S. Navy ships under Captain Samuel Du Pont move troops from

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Philadelphia to proceed to the relief of the U.S. capital. The steamer Boston transports the 7th Regiment from New York, while the ferryboat Maryland lands troops at Annapolis, Maryland. Union forces only partially destroy facilities and equipment at the Norfolk (Gosport) Navy Yard in an effort to prevent their use by the Confederates once Union forces abandon the works. The troops scuttle a number of ships, including the steam frigate Merrimack, but the hasty Union evacuation leaves the dry docks intact, and 1,200 naval cannon fall into Confederate hands. The U.S. Navy sailing sloop Saratoga captures the slave ship Nightingale, transporting 961 African slaves. The commander of the Washington Navy Yard, Captain Franklin Buchanan, resigns from the U.S. Navy. Commander John A. Dahlgren assumes command of the yard. The U.S. Navy screw sloop Pawnee arrives at Washington, D.C., further bolstering the capital’s defenses. The U.S. Naval Academy is transferred from Annapolis, Maryland, to Newport, Rhode Island. Midshipmen and faculty sail north aboard the sailing frigate Constitution. The sailing frigate Cumberland at Hampton Roads captures two Confederate ships transporting military supplies, the tug Young America and the schooner George M. Smith. The Union blockade is extended to include Virginia and North Carolina. U.S. Navy ships are authorized to seize Confederate privateers.

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U.S. Army general in chief Lieutenant General Winfield Scott proposes to U.S. president Abraham Lincoln a plan to completely blockade the Southern coastline and mount an expedition down the Mississippi River, splitting the Confederacy in half. Although untenable at the time and ridiculed in the press as the “Anaconda Plan,” Scott’s proposal provides the framework for the eventual Union victory. Confederate secretary of the navy Stephen R. Mallory orders James D. Bulloch to Great Britain to purchase ironclads and ships to be turned into commerce raiders. The U.S. Navy screw frigate Niagara takes up position off Charleston Harbor to begin the blockade of that port. The U.S. Navy sailing brig Bainbridge is ordered to New Grenada (Panama) to protect U.S. ships carrying gold from California. U.S. Navy commander John Rodgers is ordered to assist the U.S. Army in establishing a naval force that will operate on western waters. Purchased by the army, the ships are to be commanded by naval officers but


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fall under the authority of Western Department commander Major General John C. Frémont. This leads to the establishment of the Western Gunboat Flotilla (later the Mississippi Squadron.) The U.S. Navy side-wheel steamer Mississippi is forced back to Boston Harbor after the steam condensers on the ship malfunction, the result of sabotage. The first amphibious expedition of the war occurs at Alexandria, Virginia, as Commander Stephen C. Rowan of the U.S. Navy steam sloop Pawnee demands the surrender of the town. The city is quickly occupied by Union troops. The U.S. Navy blockade of the major rivers and bays of the coast of the Gulf of Mexico begins when the screw sloop Brooklyn takes up position off the mouth of the Mississippi River and the side-wheeler frigate Powhatan assumes duty off Mobile Bay, Alabama. The U.S. Navy Potomac Flotilla under Commander Ward and consisting of the steamers Thomas Freeborn (flagship), Anacostia, and Resolute bombards Confederate batteries at Aquia Creek, Virginia. The shelling continues until June 1. Also on May 29, the U.S. Navy screw steamer Union initiates the blockade off Savannah, Georgia. The Confederates begin work to salvage the U.S. Navy screw frigate Merrimack, scuttled at the Norfolk (Gosport) Navy Yard.

June 1861 4

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The U.S. Navy sailing brig Perry seizes the Confederate privateer Savannah, which also releases the U.S. brig Joseph, the prize that the Savannah had captured the day before. The U.S. Navy side-wheeler frigate Mississippi takes up the blockade off Key West, Florida. The U.S. Navy–acquired steamer Massachusetts seizes the British ship Perthshire off the coast of Pensacola, Florida, carrying a cargo of cotton. Confederate secretary of the navy Stephen R. Mallory orders Lieutenant John M. Brooke to draw up plans for an ironclad. Within two weeks Brooke comes up with a plan for a casemated vessel with inclined sides. Major General Robert E. Lee, in charge of Virginia’s defense, prepares fortifications on the Elizabeth and Rappahannock rivers. The Commission of Conference, usually referred to as the Blockade Board or the Strategy Board, meets in Washington, D.C. The commission will recommend dividing the naval blockade into four separate commands and calls for the seizure of points along the Confederate coasts for bases and coaling stations. The crew of the U.S. Navy screw

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tug Resolute disembarks and burns a Confederate supply depot along the Potomac River. Landing parties from the U.S. Navy side-wheel steamer Thomas Freeborn, the screw steamer Reliance, and the screw sloop Pawnee engage Confederate forces at Mathias Point, Virginia. Commander James H. Ward, a former superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy, becomes the first U.S. naval officer killed in action during the Civil War. Confederate Navy captain George N. Hollins leads a force disguised as passengers aboard the U.S. steamer St. Nicholas on a scheduled run between Baltimore, Maryland, and Washington, D.C., and captures the St. Nicholas. The Confederates then take three more U.S. vessels the following day: the schooners Margaret and Mary Pierce and the brig Monticello. In one of the memorable chases of the war, Confederate Navy captain Raphael Semmes runs the side-wheeler commerce raider Sumter past the U.S. Navy screw sloop Brooklyn from the mouth of the Mississippi and escapes into the Gulf of Mexico.

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The U.S. Navy screw steamer South Carolina commences the blockade off Galveston, Texas. The Confederate commerce raider Sumter puts into Havana, Cuba, with seven captured Union merchant ships. The U.S. Navy screw steamer Pocahontas battles the Confederate Navy side-wheeler steamer George Page on Aquia Creek, Virginia. The Confederate ship is damaged in the exchange. The U.S. Navy screw steamer Daylight begins the blockade off Wilmington, North Carolina. The U.S. Navy Blockade Board recommends that hulks filled with stone (the so-called Stone Fleets) be sunk in channels of strategic waterways to impede Confederate shipping and augment the porous Union naval blockade. African American sailor William Tilghman aboard the captured U.S. steamer S. J. Waring leads an effort to overcome the Confederate prize crew who had taken control. The ship docks at New York City six days later. Cuban authorities in Havana, Cuba, order the release of the seven U.S. ships captured by the Confederate commerce raider Sumter.

August 1861 1

Former U.S. Navy lieutenant Gustavus V. Fox is appointed U.S. assistant secretary of the navy.


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The first aerial reconnaissance from a naval vessel occurs when John La Mountain makes a balloon ascent from the U.S. steamer Fanny in Hampton Roads, Virginia. The objective is to observe Confederate artillery batteries at Sewell’s Point, Virginia. Aware that the Confederates have raised the scuttled U.S. Navy screw frigate Merrimack and are rebuilding it as an ironclad, the U.S. Congress authorizes the creation of the Ironclad Board to oversee and approve proposals for the design and construction of armor-plated vessels. The U.S. War Department enters into a contract with James B. Eads of St. Louis for the construction of seven ironclad river gunboats for use in the Mississippi Valley. These are the Cairo, Carondelet, Cincinnati, Louisville, Mound City, Pittsburg, and St. Louis (later Baron de Kalb). Together with the three timberclad gunboats ordered by Commander John Rodgers (the Conestoga, Lexington, and Tyler), they form the nucleus of the Western Gunboat Flotilla (later the Mississippi Squadron) and greatly contribute to the success of the Union war effort in the western theater. The U.S. timberclads Tyler, Lexington, and Conestoga, purchased and armed by Commander John Rodgers, arrive at Cairo, Illinois, to begin patrolling the strategic confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. In the first major U.S. Navy amphibious operation of the war, Commodore Silas Stringham sets sail from Hampton Roads, Virginia, for Hatteras Inlet, North Carolina, with a squadron consisting of the screw frigates Minnesota (flagship) and Wabash, the side-wheeler frigate Susquehanna, the screw sloop Pawnee, the converted merchant steamer Monticello, and the ex–Revenue Service cutter Harriet Lane. The squadron also includes the tug Fanny and the chartered steamer transports Adelaide and George Peabody, carrying some 900 army troops under Major General Benjamin F. Butler. Union forces under Flag Officer Silas H. Stringham and Major General Benjamin F. Butler receive the surrender of Confederate forts Hatteras and Clark at Hatteras Inlet, North Carolina. This operation in effect closes Pamlico Sound to Confederate blockade-running. The U.S. Navy Department abolishes the traditional daily rum ration for sailors.

September 1861 5

Captain Andrew Hull Foote relieves Commander John Rodgers, who had clashed with Western Department commander Major General John C. Frémont, as the naval officer in charge of riverine operations in the western theater.

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The timberclads Tyler and Lexington provide naval support for U.S. brigadier general Ulysses S. Grant’s troops occupying Paducah and Smithland, Kentucky. In an attempt to check Southern advances up the Mississippi River, the timberclad gunboats Conestoga and Lexington attack a Confederate garrison at Lucas Bend, Missouri, and drive off the Confederate gunboat Yankee. U.S. Navy lieutenant John H. Russell leads a contingent of marines and sailors from the screw frigate Colorado into Pensacola Harbor. The landing party burns the Confederate schooner Judah and spikes several batteries. A landing party from the U.S. Navy screw sloop Pawnee captures Beacon Island, North Carolina, sealing off the Oracoke Inlet. Union forces arriving in the screw steamer Massachusetts capture Ship Island in Mississippi Sound. It becomes a U.S. base for operations along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. U.S. Navy captain Samuel F. Du Pont is appointed commander of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. U.S. Navy commodore Louis M. Goldsborough assumes command of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles authorizes the enlistment of African American sailors aboard U.S. naval ships.

October 1861 1

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The Confederate paddle wheel steamer Curlew, steam sloop Raleigh, and screw tug Junaluska, under the overall command of Confederate flag officer William F. Lynch, capture the U.S. Navy steamer Fanny in Pamlico Sound transporting Union troops and stores. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles advises against issuing letters of marque and reprisal to private Union ships. He argues that this act would imply recognition of the sovereignty of the Confederate States of America. The Confederate ironclad ram Manassas, under Commodore George N. Hollins, assisted by the armed steamers Ivy and James L. Day, attacks the U.S. Navy squadron at the Head of Passes in the Mississippi River below New Orleans. The U.S. ships are under the command of Captain John Pope and include the steam sloop Richmond, the sloop Vincennes, the side-wheel steamer Water Witch, the supply ship Nightingale, and the sloop Preble. The attack catches the U.S. squadron by surprise. In the effort to escape, both the Richmond and Vincennes run aground but later are gotten off. Known as Pope’s Run, this embarrassing engagement forces the U.S. Navy to reconsider its blockade policy for the


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Mississippi and spurs the planning for an operation to take the city of New Orleans. The first Union City-class (Cairo-class) ironclad, the Carondelet, is launched at St. Louis. The keel of the single-turreted Union ironclad USS Monitor, designed by John Ericsson, is laid at Greenpoint, New York.

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A U.S. Navy squadron under Flag Officer Samuel F. Du Pont supports a landing of 16,000 Union troops securing Port Royal Sound in South Carolina. Port Royal becomes an important coaling station and supply and repair base for the blockading Union ships. In the western theater of war the U.S. gunboats Tyler, under Commander Henry Walke, and the Lexington, under Commander Roger Stembel, provide protection and fire support for Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant and 3,000 Union troops at the Battle of Belmont in Missouri. The two Union ships engage Confederate batteries across the Mississippi River at Columbus, Kentucky, and provide vital covering fire during the Union withdrawal. Captain Charles Wilkes of the U.S. Navy screw frigate San Jacinto stops the British mail steamer Trent in Old Bahama Channel and removes Confederate commissioners James Mason and John Slidell. On November 24 the San Jacinto arrives at Boston, and the two Confederate diplomats are imprisoned at Fort Warren. The ensuing international incident threatens war between the United States and Britain. Thaddeus Lowe conducts a balloon reconnaissance of Confederate forces from the balloon boat G. W. Parke Custis in the Potomac River. Lowe’s exploits will become the inspiration for Jules Verne’s novel Five Weeks in a Balloon. The British-built steamer Fingal, laden with military supplies, successfully runs the Union blockade and arrives at Savannah, Georgia. The steamer later becomes the Confederate ironclad Atlanta. U.S. Navy commander David Dixon Porter receives orders to begin preparations for operations to capture New Orleans, Louisiana.

December 1861 2 17

The U.S. Navy Department reports a total of 153 Confederate vessels captured since the opening of hostilities. The U.S. Navy sinks seven stone-filled hulks in an effort to block the entrance to Savannah Harbor. It is the first attempt to use so-called Stone Fleets in the Union naval blockade.

20


In another use of Stone Fleets, U.S. captain Charles H. Davis supervises the sinking of 16 whaling ship hulks at Charleston, South Carolina, in a largely unsuccessful effort to block the shipping channels to that port.

January 1862 1

7

9

11

13 16

22

28

30

The gunboats Lexington and Conestoga are ordered to patrol the Ohio River to protect pro-Union citizens there against threats from secessionists. The timberclad Conestoga, commanded by Lieutenant Seth L. Phelps, conducts a reconnaissance of the lower Cumberland and Tennessee rivers. Phelps reports that the Confederates are fortifying Fort Henry and Fort Donelson. During the following weeks, the Conestoga, Tyler, and Lexington will make repeated patrols up both rivers to determine the nature of the Confederate defenses. The intelligence gained is of vital importance to Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant and Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote in planning their upcoming campaign against the Confederate forts. Captain David G. Farragut is appointed commander of the U.S. Navy West Gulf Blockading Squadron and charged with the capture of New Orleans. The U.S. Navy river ironclads Essex, under commander William D. Porter, and the St. Louis, commanded by Lieutenant Leonard Paulding, engage Confederate gunboats in the upper Mississippi River, driving back the latter to their stronghold at Columbus, Kentucky. Lieutenant John L. Worden receives command of the U.S. Navy ironclad Monitor, still under construction. The final three of seven City-class ironclad gunboats built by James B. Eads are commissioned, bringing Union naval dominance in the western theater. During a reconnaissance mission up the Tennessee River, the U.S. gunboat Lexington exchanges fire with the Confederate garrison at Fort Henry. U.S. Navy flag officer Andrew H. Foote requests approval from the commander of the Department of the Missouri, Major General Henry W. Halleck, to move against Fort Henry and Fort Donelson before the rivers recede. Both Foote and Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant have been pleading with Halleck for permission to commence operations against the forts. The Monitor, the first U.S. Navy ironclad warship, is launched at Greenpoint, New York.


February 1862 2

3

6

7–8

14

Flag Officer David G. Farragut assumes command of the newly formed West Gulf Blockading Squadron, departing Hampton Roads, Virginia, in the screw sloop Hartford for his forward operating base at Ship Island in Mississippi Sound. In order to avoid threatened Southern retaliation against Union naval personnel, the U.S. government declares that captured Confederate privateersmen will be designated prisoners of war rather than pirates. Union troops under Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant and ships under Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote move against Fort Henry. With Grant’s troops delayed by the poor state of the roads, Foote begins the attack with his ships, consisting of the river ironclads Essex, Carondelet, Cincinnati (flagship), and St. Louis, with a separate division of the timberclads Tyler, Conestoga, and Lexington under Lieutenant Commander Seth L. Phelps. The outgunned Confederate commander, Brigadier General Lloyd Tilghman, surrenders Fort Henry to Foote before Grant and the Union troops can arrive. Immediately following the surrender of Fort Henry, Foote orders Phelps to take his timberclads in a raid up the Tennessee River. This four-day foray reaches as far as Muscle Shoals in northwestern Alabama and results in the destruction of six Confederate steamers and the capture of three others, including the Eastport, which will be converted into a Union ironclad. Phelps also secures substantial quantities of lumber and supplies. The expedition demonstrates the dominance of the U.S. river navy in the western theater. An amphibious operation under U.S. Navy flag officer Louis M. Goldsborough and U.S. Army brigadier general Ambrose E. Burnside captures Roanoke Island, effectively closing Albemarle Sound to the Confederates. Confederate captain William F. Lynch’s lightly armored mosquito fleet can offer only token resistance against the formidable Union flotilla. Gunboats of the Western Gunboat Flotilla under U.S. Navy flag officer Andrew H. Foote attack Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River in support of U.S. Army troops under Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant. Unlike the earlier Fort Henry operation, this attack is a near disaster for the gunboats against the better-sited guns of Fort Donelson. Among the Union casualties is Foote, wounded in the foot. Despite their poor showing here, the Union gunboats are an important factor in the Union victory two days later, when Donelson falls to Grant’s troops. The loss of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson renders untenable the forward Confederate defensive line in the western theater and forces the evacuation of Bowling Green, Kentucky.

17

19 25


The Confederate ironclad Virginia (the reconstructed U.S. Navy steam frigate Merrimac) is commissioned at Norfolk. Captain Franklin Buchanan is its commander. Confederate forces evacuate Clarksville, Tennessee, on the Cumberland River upon learning of the approach of Union gunboats. The U.S. Navy ironclad Monitor is commissioned in New York, with Lieutenant John L. Worden commanding. With the Cumberland River securely in Union hands, Union troops occupy Nashville, Tennessee.

March 1862 1

3

8

9

11 12

The timberclads Tyler and Lexington engage a Confederate battery at Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River. The boats silence the Confederates on shore and provide covering fire when a landing party runs into Confederate reinforcements. A U.S. Navy expedition under Flag Officer Samuel F. Du Pont captures Fernandina and Amelia Islands, Florida. A landing party from the screw gunboat Ottawa captures Fort Clinch, the first Union installation retaken in the war. The Confederate ironclad ram Virginia, commanded by Flag Officer Franklin Buchanan, attacks and sinks the U.S. Navy sailing sloop Cumberland and sailing frigate Congress in Hampton Roads, Virginia. Buchanan is wounded by shore fire during the battle, and Lieutenant Catesby ap Roger Jones takes command of the Virginia. While attempting to escape the Confederate ironclad, the U.S. Navy screw frigate Minnesota runs aground. Jones plans to return the next day and destroy it as well; however, that evening the U.S. Navy ironclad Monitor arrives and takes up the defense of the Minnesota. The U.S. Navy ironclad Monitor, commanded by Lieutenant John L. Worden, engages the Confederate ironclad Virginia, commanded by Lieutenant Catesby ap Roger Jones, in Hampton Roads, Virginia. It is the first battle of ironclad warships in history. Worden is seriously wounded. The battle is inconclusive, but the Monitor ends the threat to the Union ships at Fort Monroe, while the Virginia prevents a Union foray up the James River. Men landed from the U.S. Navy screw frigate Wabash seize control of St. Augustine, Florida. A force from the U.S. Navy screw gunboat Ottawa occupies Jacksonville, Florida. Continuing their patrols on the Tennessee River, the U.S. Navy timberclads Tyler and Lexington fire on a Confederate battery at Chickasaw, Alabama.


14

17

22

27

New Bern, North Carolina, falls to a joint U.S. amphibious assault under Commander Stephen C. Rowan and Brigadier General Ambrose E. Burnside. The fall of New Bern leads to a shortage of artillery projectiles and military stores for Confederate forces in the region. The Confederate commerce raider Nashville, commanded by Lieutenant Robert B. Pegram, runs the blockade at Beaufort, North Carolina, causing concern in Washington. U.S. Navy flag officer Andrew Foote’s gunboat flotilla, supported by mortar boats, begins the bombardment of Confederate fortifications at Island Number 10 on the Mississippi River. The first ship built in England for the Confederacy, the steamer Oreto (soon to be CSS Florida), sails from Liverpool bound for Nassau, Bahamas, where it will be armed and commissioned as a Confederate Navy commerce raider. U.S. Navy flag officer Samuel F. Du Pont reports that the water entrances to Savannah, Georgia, are under Union control.

April 1862 4

6

7

13

14

The Union City-class ironclad Carondelet, commanded by Commander Henry Walke, runs past Confederate batteries on Island Number 10 at night to support Major General John Pope’s assault on the island. The island anchors the Confederate defensive line on the Mississippi River above Memphis, Tennessee. The arrival of the Carondelet south of Island Number 10 allows Union troops there to cross the Mississippi and cut off the Confederate defenders. The Union timberclads Tyler and Lexington bombard Confederate positions through the two days and intervening night of intense fighting at Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee. In the Battle of Shiloh, the gunboats secure the Union flank at Dill Branch and deny the Confederate attacks along the river banks. In the early morning hours, the Union City-class ironclad Pittsburg also runs past the batteries on Island Number 10 to assist the Carondelet in securing the safe passage of Union troops there across the Mississippi. That same day Island Number 10 surrenders to the forces of U.S. Navy flag officer Andrew H. Foote. The Union timberclads Tyler and Lexington escort Union troops from Pittsburg Landing to Chickasaw, Alabama, to destroy a bridge along the Charleston-to-Memphis railroad. The Union flotilla commanded by Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote moves south on the Mississippi River to begin the bombardment of Fort Pillow. It is the principal defense of Memphis, Tennessee.

18

19

20

24

25

27

28


U.S. Navy commander David D. Porter, his mortar schooners in position, commences the bombardment of Fort Jackson on the Mississippi River. Porter is confident that his 13-inch mortars can reduce the Confederate defenses here and at Fort St. Philip, allowing Flag Officer David Farragut to move his West Gulf Blockading Squadron up the river to capture New Orleans, Louisiana. Crewmen of the U.S. Navy screw gunboats Itasca and Pinola breach the Confederate obstructions in the Mississippi River below Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, paving the way for Flag Officer David G. Farragut to move his West Gulf Blockading Squadron up the river and take New Orleans. Ships of the U.S. Navy Potomac Flotilla commanded by Lieutenant Robert Wyman capture nine Confederate vessels on the Rappahannock River. U.S. Navy flag officer David G. Farragut’s West Gulf Blockading Squadron runs past Confederate Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip on the lower Mississippi some 70 miles south of New Orleans, Louisiana, and defeats the defending Confederate flotilla below the city that includes the ironclad ram Manassas. Ships of U.S. Navy flag officer David G. Farragut’s West Gulf Blockading Squadron, anchored at New Orleans, secure the surrender of the largest and wealthiest city in the South. At New Orleans, the Confederates destroy their formidable yet unfinished ironclad Mississippi (it had been launched only on April 19) to prevent it from falling into Union hands. Crew members of the U.S. Navy schooner Kittatinny hoist the U.S. flag over Fort Livingston, Bastion Bay, Louisiana, following the Confederate garrison’s surrender. Confederate troops at Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip surrender to Union naval forces on the Mississippi River. The Confederate unfinished ironclad Louisiana, the cottonclad ram Defiance, and the screw gunboat McRae are all scuttled to prevent Union capture.

May 1862 8

At the urging of U.S. president Abraham Lincoln, the U.S. Navy ironclad Monitor, screw sloops Dacotah and Seminole, side-wheel frigate Susquehanna, and small screw steamer Naugatuck attack Confederate batteries at Sewell’s Point, Virginia. Lincoln prods the commanding naval officer there, Flag Officer Louis M. Goldsborough, to make this attack with the hope of landing troops to threaten the Norfolk Navy Yard.


9

10

11

13

15

Landing parties from the U.S. Navy screw sloop Iroquois occupy Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and seize the Confederate arsenal there. U.S. captain Charles H. Davis relieves Flag Officer Andrew Foote, who has not recovered from wounds sustained during the attack on Fort Donelson, as commander of the Western Gunboat Flotilla. Confederate forces destroy both the Norfolk Navy Yard in Virginia and the Pensacola Navy Yard in Florida to prevent their use by Union forces. Both naval facilities are quickly reoccupied by Union troops. The Confederate Mississippi River Defense Fleet, consisting of eight steamers converted into rams under the command of Captain James Montgomery, attacks the Union flotilla at Plum Point Bend, just above Fort Pillow, Tennessee. The City-class ironclads Cincinnati and Mound City are rammed and sink but in shallow water where they can be refloated and then repaired and returned to service. Montgomery’s ships are driven off by the arrival of additional Union ships, and a number of the Confederate gunboats sustain both damage and casualties. Unable to make it up the James River, the Confederate ironclad ram Virginia is destroyed by its crew near Craney Island, Virginia, to prevent its capture by advancing Union forces. African American pilot Robert Smalls leads the seizure of the Confederate steamer Planter, sails it out of Charleston Harbor, and surrenders the vessel to the Union blocking warship Onward. The James River Flotilla under Commander John Rodgers approaches to within eight miles of Richmond, Virginia. The flotilla is halted at Drewry’s Bluff by Confederate batteries and obstructions in the river. Rodgers’s effort to reach Richmond is not supported by land forces, dooming the venture. The Drewry’s Bluff fortifications are in large part manned by Confederate seamen and marines, most of them formerly of CSS Virginia.

June 1862 4

6

17

Fort Pillow, Tennessee, is abandoned by Confederate forces. Union naval forces are then able to move downriver on the Mississippi against Memphis. Ironclad gunboats and timberclad gunboats of the Western Gunboat Flotilla under Captain Charles H. Davis and newly converted wooden rams of the Mississippi Ram Fleet under Colonel Charles R. Ellet Jr. destroy the rams of the Confederate River Defense Fleet under Captain James E. Montgomery in the Battle of Memphis in Tennessee. The unprotected city is forced to surrender. The Union City-class ironclad Mound City, under Commander Augustus H. Kilty, is hit and suffers serious damage in an artillery duel with Confederate shore batteries on the White River near Charles City,

28


Arkansas. Other Union ships are able to tow the stricken vessel out of range. The shore batteries are neutralized by accompanying troops, and the White River is opened to Union patrols. Ships of U.S. Navy flag officer David G. Farragut’s West Gulf Blockading Squadron, with fire support from Commander David D. Porter’s mortar schooners, successfully run north past the Confederate batteries at Vicksburg, Mississippi.

July 1862 1

5

15

16

19

The ships of Flag Officer David G. Farragut’s West Gulf Blockading Squadron are joined in the Mississippi River above Vicksburg by the lead elements of Flag Officer Charles H. Davis’s Western Gunboat Flotilla. For the first time in the war, the brown (freshwater) and blue (saltwater) squadrons meet. Flag Officer Louis M. Goldsborough’s squadron on the James River in Virginia covers the withdrawal of Major General George B. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac following the Battle of Malvern Hill. The U.S. Navy Department is reorganized into eight administrative divisions: Yards and Docks, Equipment and Recruiting, Navigation, Ordnance, Construction and Repair, Steam Engineering, Provisions and Clothing, and Medicine and Surgery. The Confederate ironclad ram Arkansas, commanded by Lieutenant Isaac N. Brown, exits the Yazoo River and runs through the Union ships above Vicksburg, Mississippi, exchanging fire with them as it proceeds. The City-class ironclad Carondelet and the timberclad Tyler are disabled. The ram then arrives at Vicksburg, where it anchors under the protection of Confederate shore batteries. The U.S. Congress authorizes the creation of the rank of rear admiral, the first in U.S. Navy history. Four are named. David G. Farragut is first in order of preexisting seniority, followed by Louis M. Goldsborough, Samuel F. Du Pont, and Andrew H. Foote. A Confederate naval court-martial acquits Flag Officer Josiah Tattnall of blame for scuttling the ironclad Virginia.

August 1862 6

10

The Confederate ironclad Arkansas is destroyed by its crew when its engines fail in an aborted attempt to support Confederate troops attempting to capture Baton Rouge, Louisiana. U.S. Navy rear admiral David G. Farragut orders the shelling of Donaldsonville, Louisiana, in response to sniper attacks on his ships patrolling the Mississippi. He warns Confederate authorities that if these attacks do not cease, he will order the town destroyed.


24

26

In the Azores Islands, Confederate commander Raphael Semmes takes command of the Enrica, built in Britain, and commissions that ship CSS Alabama. Captain Franklin Buchanan is promoted to the rank of rear admiral, making him the senior-ranking officer in the Confederate Navy.

September 1862 1

8

25

U.S. Navy rear admiral Samuel P. Lee takes over command of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, relieving Rear Admiral Louis M. Goldsborough. U.S. Navy commodore John Wilkes assumes command of the West India Squadron. Its primary mission is to seek out and capture Confederate commerce raiders, and it is formed largely in response to the successes of the Confederate commerce raider Alabama. The U.S. Navy screw steamer Kensington, schooner Rachel Seaman, and mortar schooner Henry James shell Confederate positions ashore at Sabine Pass, Texas. Confederate troops stationed at Sabine City, Texas, near the mouth of the Sabine River are forced to withdraw temporarily from the city.

October 1862 1

21

30 31

The Western Gunboat Flotilla is formally transferred from War Department control to that of the U.S. Navy. Commander David D. Porter, promoted to rear admiral, is placed in command of the newly sanctioned Mississippi Squadron, bringing the brown water navy to equal footing with the oceangoing squadrons. Crewmen from the U.S. Navy City-class ironclad Louisville, escorting the army transport Meteor, capture and burn the towns of Bledsoe’s Landing and Hamblin’s Landing, Arkansas. These actions were in response to an attack by Confederate guerrillas on the Union mail steamer Gladiator. The U.S. Navy Department offers a reward of $500,000 for the capture of the Confederate commerce raider Alabama. The Confederate Congress authorizes the formation of the Torpedo Bureau under the command of General Gabriel J. Rains and the Naval Submarine Battery Service under Lieutenant Hunter Davidson. The goal is to substantially increase the use of naval mines (torpedoes as they were known at the time) against U.S. Navy warships.

November 1862 3

The Confederate gunboat Cotton, supported by field artillery batteries, engages the Union squadron consisting of the side-wheeler steamers


Calhoun, Kinsman and Dana and the screw steamer Erstrella at Berwick Bay, Louisiana. The Union ships receive significant damage before the Cotton, having depleted its ammunition, is forced to withdraw.

December 1862 1

7 12

31

U.S. secretary of the navy Gideon Welles reports that the navy has grown to 427 commissioned ships, 28,000 sailors, and 12,000 support personnel. The Confederate commerce raider Alabama seizes the U.S. steamer Ariel with 700 passengers, including 150 U.S. marines. The City-class ironclad Cairo, commanded by Lieutenant Commander Thomas O. Selfridge, is lost when it sinks after striking two Confederate torpedoes (naval mines) in the Yazoo River during operations to circumvent the Confederate fortifications at Vicksburg, Mississippi. The Cairo is the first U.S. Navy vessel to be destroyed by a Confederate torpedo. The U.S. navy ironclad Monitor founders in a storm while under tow and is lost at sea off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.

January 1863 1

9–11

11

14

21

A Confederate combined arms operation, including the cottonclads Bayou City and Neptune, defeats Union troops at Galveston, forcing them to withdraw from their only foothold on the Texas coast. As a result of the battle, the Confederates capture USS Harriet Lane, and the side-wheel steamer USS Westfield is destroyed. Gunboats of the U.S. Navy Mississippi Squadron under Rear Admiral David D. Porter and Union troops under Brigadier General William T. Sherman force the surrender of Fort Hindman (Arkansas Post) on the Arkansas River. The fort was reduced by effective naval fire, and the Confederate ram Pontchartrain is sunk. Captain Raphael Semmes of the Confederate commerce raider Alabama lures away from the rest of the U.S. Navy squadron off Galveston, Texas, the side-wheeler Hatteras, commanded by Lieutenant Commander H. C. Blake. In a quick battle, the Alabama sinks the Hatteras and then escapes into the Gulf of Mexico. Union forces sweep up Bayou Teche, Louisiana, in an effort to eliminate Confederate resistance above Brashear City (Morgan City). Confederate land troops are forced to withdraw from Franklin, Louisiana, and U.S. ships block the bayou, forcing the destruction of the Confederate gunboat Cotton. The Confederate cottonclads Josiah Bell and Uncle Ben capture the Union blockader Morning Light and the small schooner Velocity, temporarily lifting the U.S. Navy blockade of Sabine Pass, Texas.


30

31

A joint Union army-navy expedition under the escort of the side-wheel steamer Commodore Perry steams up the Perquimans River, North Carolina, eliminating a major Confederate supply line from the Carolinas. The U.S. Navy stern-wheeler Linden provides assistance to Union troops under Major General Ulysses S. Grant who are digging a canal through Lake Providence, Louisiana, in order to allow the passage of Union troops to attack Vicksburg, Mississippi. The Confederate ironclad rams Palmetto State and Chicora sortie from Charleston, South Carolina, to attack the U.S. Navy wooden blockaders off that port. The U.S. Navy screw steamer Mercedita surrenders, while the side-wheel steamer Keystone State is damaged. The arrival of Union reinforcements, especially the screw sloop Housatonic, forces the retirement of the Confederate ironclads, and both Union warships are recovered.

February 1863 13

14

24

25

28

The U.S. Navy ironclad Indianola, under Lieutenant Commander George Brown, runs south on the Mississippi River past the Vicksburg batteries in an effort to assist the ram Queen of the West in blockading the mouth of the Red River. The Union ram Queen of the West, commanded by Brigadier General Alfred W. Ellet, is run aground by a Confederate pilot in an expedition up the Red River in Louisiana. The ram is abandoned under heavy fire from Confederate shore batteries. The Union prize De Soto, which had accompanied the Queen of the West, is also lost, with the Union seamen finding safety on the Era No. 5. The Confederates then take possession of the Queen of the West, repair it, and use it to disrupt Union operations below Vicksburg. The Confederate gunboat William H. Webb and the recently captured ram Queen of the West attack and capture the powerful Union ironclad Indianola in the Mississippi River near the mouth of the Red River. The next day the Confederates, believing a false report that a powerful Union ironclad has come down the Mississippi past Vicksburg, destroy the damaged Indianola to prevent its recovery by the Union side but later salvage its ordnance. The U.S. side-wheel steamer Vanderbilt seizes the British merchant ship Peterhoff, sparking an international dispute with Great Britain over mail confiscated from that ship. The U.S. Navy ironclad monitor Montauk, under Commander John L. Worden and operating with the screw gunboats Wissahickon, Seneca, and Dawn, destroys the blockade-runner Rattlesnake (formerly CSS


Nashville) at Fort McAllister on the Savannah River in Georgia. Commander of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron Rear Admiral Samuel F. Du Pont had sent the Montauk several times against McAllister in order to test the capability of the monitors against shore installations prior to his assault on Charleston. The results are disappointing to the Union side.

March 1863 11

13

14

14–27

28

In the Yazoo Pass Expedition, U.S. Navy rear admiral David D. Porter sends a large force of ships belonging to the Mississippi Squadron up the Yazoo River in an effort to work around the Confederate defenses at Vicksburg. On this date the flotilla comes up against and is unable to subdue Confederate Fort Pemberton at Greenwood, Mississippi, a swampy area north of Vicksburg. During the Yazoo Pass Expedition, the U.S. Navy ironclad Chillicothe, commanded by Lieutenant James P. Foster, is heavily damaged in an exchange with Confederate artillery at Fort Pemberton. The Confederate defenses here force the Union side to abort the mission. U.S. Navy rear admiral David G. Farragut, proceeding north on the Mississippi River with seven ships of his West Gulf Blockading Squadron, engages the reinforced Confederate defenses of Port Hudson, Louisiana. Only the screw sloop Hartford and the gunboat Albatross are able to make it past the Confederate batteries, and the side-wheeler frigate USS Mississippi is lost. The attack is part of a coordinated effort against Port Hudson, with 25,000 U.S. Army troops under Major General Nathaniel P. Banks, but the dilatory Union general only probes the Confederate defenses and fails to launch the planned coordinated attack that would occupy the Confederate gunners. Learning of Farragut’s failure, Banks then calls off his own effort. The commander of the U.S. Navy’s Mississippi Squadron, Rear Admiral David Porter, again attempts to work around the Vicksburg defenses, this time from the north. In the Steele’s Bayou Expedition, the Union gunboats experience problems of low water, obstacles, and Confederate opposition. Porter’s ships are almost cut off and destroyed by Confederate troops, but U.S. Army troops with the expedition are able to come up and drive them off, and Porter’s ships escape. The small U.S. Navy side-wheel steamer Diana is attacked and captured by Confederate infantry along the Atchafalaya River in Louisiana.

April 1863 1

U.S. Navy Mississippi Squadron commander Rear Admiral David Porter along with Major General Ulysses S. Grant and Brigadier


3

7

9

16–17

29

30

General William T. Sherman aboard the river ironclad Tuscumbia conduct a reconnaissance of the Yazoo River. This foray helps convince Grant that he should move against Vicksburg from the south and east. A U.S. Navy expedition under Lieutenant Commander Le Roy Fitch and consisting of the timberclad Lexington and the tinclads Alfred Robb, Brilliant, Silver Lake, and Springfield attacks and destroys the town of Palmyra, Tennessee, in retaliation for recent attacks by Confederate guerrillas in the vicinity against Union shipping. Pressed by U.S. secretary of the navy Gideon Welles to attack the Confederate port of Charleston, South Carolina, South Atlantic Blockading Squadron commander Rear Admiral Samuel F. Du Pont sends nine ironclads against Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. The ironclads sustain heavy damage, and the Keokuk sinks the following day. Confederate commander William L. Maury takes command of the former merchant ship Japan and commissions it the commerce raider Georgia. Ships of Rear Admiral David D. Porter’s Mississippi Squadron run south past the Vicksburg defenses. U.S. Army major general Ulysses S. Grant’s troops then march down the west bank of the river and rejoin the transports south of Vicksburg. U.S. Mississippi Squadron commander Rear Admiral David D. Porter attacks the Confederate defenses at Grand Gulf, Mississippi, with the ironclads Benton, Louisville, Carondelet, Mound City, Pittsburg, Tuscumbia, and Lafayette. The Battle of Grand Gulf lasts more than six hours, with the Union ships firing more than 1,000 rounds. Although Union shelling soon silences the lower battery and causes upper battery fire to slacken, most of the ships are damaged in turn. U.S. Army major general Ulysses S. Grant then decides to cross the river at Bruinsburg, Mississippi, six miles downriver. At Bruinsburg, Mississippi, in the largest amphibious operation to this point in American history, the ships of the U.S. Mississippi Squadron begin ferrying U.S. Army major general Ulysses S. Grant’s troops across the Mississippi River from Louisiana to Mississippi to operate against the Confederate defenders of Vicksburg from the south and east. The operation ends on May 1.

May 1863 3

Ships of Rear Admiral David D. Porter’s Mississippi Squadron assist Major General Ulysses S. Grant’s ground troops in forcing the Confederate evacuation of Grand Gulf, Mississippi. The elimination of this Confederate stronghold secures Grant’s position on the east bank of the Mississippi River.

7 27


U.S. Mississippi Squadron commander Rear Admiral David D. Porter secures the surrender of Alexandria, Louisiana. The U.S. Mississippi Squadron ironclad Cincinnati is sunk by Confederate land batteries of Fort Hill, near Vicksburg, Mississippi.

June 1863 16 17

24

The U.S. Navy tinclad New Era sinks nine Confederate vessels assembling near Island Number 10 in the Mississippi River. In Wassaw Sound, Georgia, the Confederate ironclad ram Atlanta, under Commander William A. Webb and escorted by two steamers, engages the U.S. Navy monitors Weehawken and Nahant under Captain John Rodgers. During the engagement, the Atlanta grounds on a bar and is subsequently forced to surrender. U.S. Navy rear admiral John A. Dahlgren is detached from duty at the Washington Navy Yard and ordered to take command of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, relieving Rear Admiral Samuel F. Du Pont. The Confederate commerce raider bark Tacony, commanded by Lieutenant Charles W. Read, captures the U.S. merchant schooner Archer. Read has been raiding up the Atlantic coast. With so many Union ships now searching for the Tacony, Read transfers his crew to the Archer and burns his former ship. In all, Read and his crew will capture or destroy 22 Union vessels, including the U.S. Revenue Service cutter Caleb Cushing, which will be retaken.

July 1863 4

8

9

10

Vicksburg, Mississippi, surrenders to Union major general Ulysses S. Grant following a 47-day siege and bombardment. The ships and men of Rear Admiral David D. Porter’s Mississippi Squadron play a key role in this Union victory. With the sole exception of the Confederate bastion of Port Hudson, Louisiana, the Mississippi River is entirely in Union possession. A Union flotilla consisting of seven tinclads, all under the command of Lieutenant Commander Le Roy Fitch, patrols the Ohio River in an attempt to trap Confederate cavalry under Brigadier General John Hunt Morgan. With news that Vicksburg has surrendered, the Confederate defenders of Port Hudson, Louisiana, the last remaining Confederate Mississippi River bastion, also surrender to Union forces following an extended siege. Union naval forces now control the full length of the mighty river. Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren’s ironclads resume bombardment of the Charleston, South Carolina, defenses, concentrating their fire on Fort Wagner and Morris Island.


13

18

Yazoo City, Mississippi, the last Confederate naval base operating near Vicksburg, Mississippi, succumbs to a joint army-navy expedition. The Confederates scuttle 17 vessels, while the U.S. Navy ironclad Baron de Kalb is sunk by a torpedo. A squadron of six ironclads in Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren’s South Atlantic Blockading Squadron shell Battery Wagner on Morris Island, South Carolina. Despite the naval cannonade, the Confederate defenders repulse a Union infantry assault on the fort, with heavy casualties.

August 1863 1

5

16

17

21

23

29

U.S. Navy rear admiral David D. Porter relieves Rear Admiral David G. Farragut of command of the lower reaches of the Mississippi River and assumes command of that river from New Orleans to the headwaters. The U.S. Navy side-wheeler gunboat and former ferry Commodore Barney is severely damaged by a Confederate electrically detonated torpedo in the James River above Dutch Gap, Virginia. After the screw sloop Pawnee is nearly sunk by a Confederate torpedo at Stono Inlet, South Carolina, Union forces place a net across the channel to protect the blockading warships. South Atlantic Blockading Squadron commander Rear Admiral John Dahlgren’s squadron of seven ironclads and eight gunboats begins a five-day bombardment of Charleston Harbor. The Confederate torpedo boat Torch uses a spar torpedo to try to sink the U.S. Navy ironclad New Ironsides, off Charleston, South Carolina, but the attempt goes awry when the torpedo fails to make contact with the ironclad’s hull. An expedition led by Confederate lieutenant John T. Wood on the Rappahannock River in Virginia seizes the Union tug Reliance and the side-wheeler Satellite. Another attempt by South Atlantic Blockading Squadron commander Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren to shell the Confederate defenses in Charleston Harbor is thwarted by dense fog. The ships withdraw, having inflicted little damage. The Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley, under the command of Lieutenant John A. Payne, sinks during a trial in Charleston Harbor, killing five of its crew. Three men escape.

September 1863 6

Confederate forces evacuate Morris Island off Charleston Harbor following almost two months of Union bombardment by both army and navy guns.

8


The Confederate gunboat Uncle Ben and shore batteries at Fort Griffin turn back a Union expedition attempting to take Sabine Pass, Texas. The Union side-wheel steamer Clifton and the small screw vessel Sachem are both disabled and forced to surrender.

October 1863 5

15

The semisubmersible Confederate torpedo boat David, commanded by Lieutenant William T. Glassell, detonates a spar torpedo against the U.S. Navy ironclad New Ironsides off Charleston, South Carolina. The New Ironsides is damaged in the attack and is forced to leave the Charleston station for repairs. The Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley sinks for a second time during training exercises in Charleston Harbor, again because of human error. The eight men aboard, including Horace Hunley for whom it is named, all perish.

November 1863 2–4

A U.S. expeditionary force consisting of the screw sloop Monongahela and the screw gunboats Owasco and Virginia escorts units of the army’s IXX Corps in a successful amphibious landing at Brazos Santiago, Texas. The Confederates evacuate Brownsville, Texas. This is designed in part to send a message to France, which is then intervening militarily in Mexico.

December 1863 7

Confederates, disguised as passengers, seize control of the U.S. steamer Chesapeake bound for Portland, Maine, off Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The Confederates then take the ship to Nova Scotia.

February 1864 2

17

A Confederate small boat expedition under Commander John T. Wood captures and destroys the U.S. Navy side-wheel steamer Underwriter on the Neuse River in North Carolina. The Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley, now commanded by army lieutenant G. F. Dixon, attacks and sinks the U.S. Navy screw sloop Housatonic off Charleston, South Carolina. It is the first time in history that a submarine has sunk a ship in combat. The Hunley, however, is lost with its entire crew.

March 1864 12

U.S. Navy rear admiral David D. Porter leads the bulk of his Mississippi Squadron across the bar into the Red River in Louisiana to com-


15

18

29

mence the naval portion of the ill-fated Red River Campaign. This operation, to capture the Confederate state capital of Shreveport in preparation for launching a land invasion of Texas from the east, ends in near disaster for the navy. The campaign begins well, with Fort DeRussy, a short distance up the river, falling to U.S. troops assisted by the ironclad Eastport. The U.S. Navy river monitor Osage forces the surrender of Alexandria, Louisiana, the largest municipality in central Louisiana. The town is occupied by Union troops shortly thereafter. Confederate lieutenant General Edmund Kirby Smith orders the large side-wheeler New Falls City to Scopini’s Cut-off, there to be scuttled across the Red River to disrupt the Mississippi Squadron’s ascent to Shreveport, Louisiana. The Confederates also plan to destroy the Hotchkiss Dam, a short distance above the wreck of the New Falls City. In addition, Confederate diversionary schemes substantially reduce the water level in the Red River, endangering the ships of U.S. rear admiral David D. Porter’s Mississippi Squadron. The ships of U.S. Navy rear admiral David D. Porter’s Mississippi Squadron begin their ascent of the Red River above Alexandria. The river is now falling steadily.

April 1864 3

7

10

Forward elements of the Mississippi Squadron arrive at Grand Ecore, Louisiana, for the final push to capture Shreveport. U.S. Army major general Nathaniel P. Banks decides to take a route that will see the bulk of the land force move inland away from the protection of the Union warships. U.S. Navy Mississippi Squadron commander Rear Admiral David D. Porter leads a number of ironclads and tinclads to join U.S. Army major general Nathaniel P. Banks at Springfield Landing, Louisiana. Ships of U.S. rear admiral David D. Porter’s squadron arrive at Springfield, Louisiana. There he awaits the arrival of land forces under Major General Nathaniel P. Banks for the final Union drive on Shreveport, only to receive word that Banks had been defeated on April 8 in the Battle of Mansfield, the decisive engagement of the Red River Campaign. Although Banks fell back, regrouped, and rebuffed the Confederates at Pleasant Hill the next day, he decided to withdraw. All Union troops retired at night to Grand Ecore and from there to Alexandria. This decision leaves Porter in a perilous position, with Confederate troops able to act against his ships in the river. Porter now orders his ships back down the Red River.

12 15

19

21

26–27


The U.S. Navy river monitor Osage in the Red River fights a pitched battle with Texas troops on land at Blair’s Landing, Louisiana. The large U.S. Navy ironclad Eastport strikes a Confederate torpedo a short distance downstream from Grand Ecore, Louisiana. The damage is extensive, but the Eastport is taken under tow. The Confederate ironclad Albemarle, under Commander James W. Cooke, attacks and sinks the U.S. Navy side-wheel steamer Southfield and forces the Union squadron at Plymouth, North Carolina, to withdraw from that place. The Confederates recapture Plymouth the following day. Unable to bring the unwieldy damaged U.S. Navy ironclad Eastport farther without also jeopardizing the ships accompanying it, Mississippi Squadron commander Rear Admiral David D. Porter orders the ship destroyed near Montgomery, Louisiana. Mississippi Squadron commander Rear Admiral David D. Porter, leading his ships back to Alexandria, Louisiana, fights a running battle with Confederate artillery batteries along the banks of the Red River. The tinclads Cricket and Juliet are badly damaged in the exchange. The stern-wheelers Champion No. 3 and Champion No. 5 are both lost. The ships of the Mississippi Squadron above the falls at Alexandria are now trapped by the low waters of the Red River.

May 1864 1

4

5

6 13

The U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps transports Emma and City Belle and the dispatch boat John Warner are attacked by Confederate land artillery and sunk below Alexandria, Louisiana, at Egg Bend on the Red River. The Union tinclads Covington and Signal come under attack from Confederate land artillery below Egg Bend on the Red River. Both are lost. The U.S. Navy side-wheel gunboats Sassacus, Wyalusing, and Mattabesett engage the Confederate ironclad Albemarle off the mouth of the Roanoke River, North Carolina, as Union forces attempt to regain control of the area near Plymouth. The side-wheel steamer and former ferry boat Commodore Jones is destroyed by a Confederate torpedo in the James River in Virginia. The remaining ships of Rear Admiral David D. Porter’s Mississippi Squadron escape capture or destruction at Alexandria, Louisiana, following the construction of dams to raise the river’s level.

June 1864 19

The U.S. Navy screw sloop Kearsarge, under Commander John A. Winslow, sinks the Confederate commerce raider Alabama, com-


manded by Captain Raphael Semmes, in a battle off Cherbourg, France, while thousands watch from shore. The Confederates suffer 9 dead and 20 wounded in action and 12 men drowned. The Kearsarge suffers only 3 wounded, 1 of whom later dies. Semmes and 41 others are rescued by the British yacht Deerhound, which takes them to Southampton. The British government then refuses to turn the men over to U.S. authorities. During its career at sea, the Alabama had taken 66 commercial vessels and sunk a Union warship, the Hatteras. The total value of the Union property destroyed is estimated at some $4.6 million.

August 1864 5

23

The ships of U.S. rear admiral David G. Farragut’s West Gulf Blockading Squadron led by the ironclad monitors Tecumseh, Manhattan, Winnebago, and Chickasaw and followed by 14 wooden warships steam into Mobile Bay. The leading Tecumseh is lost in the Confederate torpedo field, but the other ships enter the bay, engaging Confederate Fort Morgan as they do so. They easily dispose of the Confederate gunboats but face the powerful Confederate ironclad Tennessee, under squadron commander Rear Admiral Franklin Buchanan. Following the charge of the Tennessee against the entire Union squadron, the Union ships force its surrender. The Battle of Mobile Bay is the bloodiest naval engagement of the entire war. Union casualties are 145 killed and 170 wounded. The Confederates lose 12 killed and 20 wounded, and the crews of the Tennessee and gunboat Selma are captured. Fort Morgan, the last of the three Confederate forts at Mobile Bay, surrenders to Union forces.

October 1864 7

19

27

The U.S. Navy screw sloop Wachusett, under Lieutenant Napoleon Collins, violates Brazilian neutrality and captures the Confederate commerce raider Florida, commanded by Lieutenant Charles M. Morris, at Bahia, Brazil. The British-built Sea King is commissioned the Confederate commerce raider Shenandoah, under the command of Lieutenant James I. Waddell in the Madeira Islands. A Union launch commanded by Lieutenant William B. Cushing and employing a spar torpedo sinks the Confederate ironclad ram Albemarle in the Roanoke River, completing Union control of the area near Plymouth, North Carolina.


November 1864 4

Confederate raiders under General Nathan Bedford Forrest capture the U.S. Navy stern-wheelers Key West, Tawah, and Elfin near Johnsonville, Tennessee, on the Tennessee River.

December 1864 23

24–25

Rear Admiral David G. Farragut becomes the first American naval officer to be promoted to the newly established rank of vice admiral, a grade equal to that of army lieutenant general. A U.S. amphibious operation under North Atlantic Blockading Squadron commander Rear Admiral David D. Porter and Major General Benjamin F. Butler fails to capture the Confederate bastion of Fort Fisher. The operation was mounted to close the port of Wilmington, North Carolina.

January 1865 13–15

23–24

Fort Fisher falls to a U.S. amphibious operation commanded by Rear Admiral David D. Porter and Major General Alfred H. Terry. This cuts off blockade-runners from reaching the last remaining major Confederate Atlantic port of Wilmington, North Carolina, severely impacting the flow of supplies to Confederate general Robert E. Lee’s forces in the vicinity of Richmond, Virginia. The Confederate James River Squadron under Flag Officer John K. Mitchell attempts to move down the James River to attack General Ulysses S. Grant’s supply hub at City Point, Virginia. The attack ends when the ironclads Virginia II and Richmond ground. The Confederate ships are at last floated free and escape back upriver, but the small gunboat Drewry is blown up when a mortar shell from a Union shore battery explodes its magazine, and the torpedo boat Scorpion is captured.

February 1865 17–18

18

22

Confederate forces abandon Charleston, South Carolina, as ships of the U.S. Navy’s South Atlantic Blockading Squadron land army troops at Bull’s Bay and Major General William T. Sherman’s powerful forces approach the city from the west. The Confederate commerce raider Shenandoah, commanded by Lieutenant James I. Waddell, departs Melbourne, Australia, following repairs there to resume its commerce raiding in the Pacific Ocean. Confederate forces abandon Wilmington, North Carolina, as ships of Rear Admiral David D. Porter’s North Atlantic Blockading Squadron


move up the Cape Fear River and Major General John M. Schofield’s troops march on the city by land.

April 1865 2–4

3

4

9

11–12

14 14

23–24

27

Confederate secretary of the navy Stephen R. Mallory orders the destruction of the Confederate James River Squadron followed by a directive for its officers and men to join General Robert E. Lee’s troops evacuating Richmond and withdrawing westward. Midshipmen from the Confederate Naval Academy, under the command of Lieutenant William H. Parker, escort government archives, treasury paper money, and bullion from Richmond to Danville, Virginia, in the vain hope of reestablishing the government in the Trans-Mississippi region. U.S. Navy North Atlantic Blockading Squadron commander Rear Admiral David D. Porter accompanies President Abraham Lincoln up the James River to Richmond on board the side-wheeler Malvern. General Robert E. Lee formally surrenders the Army of Northern Virginia to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. The Confederate batteries Tracy and Huger, on the Blakely River near Spanish Fort in Alabama, fall to Union forces, and Confederate troops evacuate Mobile, which then surrenders. President Lincoln is mortally wounded at Ford’s Theatre in Washington and dies the following morning. Major General Robert Anderson, who had commanded the Union Army garrison at Fort Sumter on April 14, 1861, receives the surrender of that Confederate fort. The Confederate side-wheel gunboat Webb, commanded by Lieutenant Charles W. Read, forays from Shreveport, Louisiana, on the Red River and enters the Mississippi River in an attempt to escape to the sea. Trapped near Algiers, across the river from New Orleans, the Webb is grounded and torched to avoid capture. The side-wheel steamer Sultana sinks in the Mississippi River a few miles north of Memphis, Tennessee. Considered the largest maritime disaster of the Civil War, an estimated 1,700 to 1,800 Union soldiers, most of whom had been recently released from Confederate prison camps at Andersonville and Cahaba, are killed. The tragedy may have been caused by a Confederate coal torpedo.

May 1865 19

The Confederate ironclad ram Stonewall, commanded by Captain Thomas J. Page and having sailed from France, is turned over to the Cuban government in Havana.


June 1865 2 6

28

Confederate lieutenant General Edmund Kirby Smith surrenders Galveston, Texas, on board the large side-wheeler USS Fort Jackson. Confederate Navy lieutenant Jonathan H. Carter surrenders the ironclad Missouri to the U.S. Navy tinclad Ouachita, commanded by Lieutenant William E. Fitzhugh, at Alexandria, Louisiana, on the Red River. The Missouri is the last Confederate ironclad to surrender to Union forces. The commerce raider CSS Shenandoah, under the command of Lieutenant James Waddell, captures 11 American whalers in the Bering Strait in the North Pacific.

August 1865 2

Communicating with the British bark Barracouta, Confederate Navy lieutenant James Waddell, commander of the commerce raider Shenandoah, receives confirmation that the Civil War is over. Rather than surrendering to a U.S. flag vessel, Waddell decides to undertake a nonstop voyage to Liverpool, England, via Cape Horn.

November 1865 6

The Confederate commerce raider Shenandoah, commanded by Lieutenant James Waddell, arrives at Liverpool, England, after a 123-day voyage from the Aleutian Islands. Waddell lowers the last official Confederate flag and turns over his ship to British authorities. Gary D. Joiner and William E. Whyte III


Glossary of Naval Terms

abaft aboard adrift aft aground ahead all hands aloft amidships anchorage astern athwart awash aweigh ballast

barge

barkentine battery

“Further aft than.” In or toward the stern. In a naval station or vessel. A ship loose from its moorings. Near, toward, or at the stern of the ship. The opposite of forward and fore. A ship whose bottom has become mired at the bottom of a body of water. Direction in front of a ship’s bow. All members of a ship’s crew, including officers and enlisted personnel. Any position above the highest deck of a vessel. The center part of the ship. This is both between the fore and aft sections and between the port and starboard sides. Area suitable for the mooring of a vessel. Behind a ship. At right angles to a point; across. Level with and open to the surface of the water. Said of an anchor immediately when it is broken out of the ground and when its cable is up and down. Additional weight placed low in the hull to improve stability and enable a ship to carry more sail. Can be external (outside the hull) or internal (inboard) and permanent (concrete) or temporary (as in saltwater tanks). A large flat-bottomed vessel used to transport goods. Barges are utilized in both inland and coastal waters and are usually towed by a tugboat. Three-masted ship, square-rigged on the foremast; main- and mizzen masts carry fore and aft sails. A group of guns. All guns on one side of the ship or, in modern terminology, the armament of a surface ship.

803

804 |â•‡ Glossary of Naval Terms

beam

bearing beat bilge bilges

blockade- â•… runner

boatswain boom bow bow chase brig broadside bulkhead cannonade capstan captain’s â•… mast cartel ship casemate cathead chain locker close hauled cockpit

The breadth of a ship. Measured at the widest point. The waterline beam is the measurement of this at the point where the hull touches the waterline. The horizontal direction of one terrestrial point from another. To sail toward the direction of the wind (windward). Must be sailed on a zigzag course with sails close-hauled. The rounded part of the ship’s body where the bottom curves up toward the sides. The lowest part inside the hull where bilge water collects. Bilge water accumulates as a result of spray, rain, condensation, leaks, etc. A ship that attempted to pass through a blockade, either outward bound or returning. During the Civil War, blockade-Â� runners were often specially constructed speedy steamers built in Great Britain. Sailor in charge of deck operations and maintenance such as sails, rigging, anchors, cables, etc. Pronounced “bosun.” A long spar used to extend the foot of a sail. The forward end of a ship. Cannon mounted on the fore part of the ship and used in pursuit of an enemy vessel. Area of a vessel that serves as a jail or confinement space. Also ship type. The firing of all guns on one side of a ship at the same time. Wall or partition separating compartments within a ship’s hulls. Application of artillery to naval warfare or a vessel’s effort to attack an object. A winch usually fastened to the deck of the ship and used to haul heavy objects such as anchors. A disciplinary proceeding at which a naval officer hears and disposes cases against enlisted personnel. Also known as masted or going before the mast. Ship used to transport prisoners. An armored enclosure aboard a ship where guns are fired through embrasures. A piece of timber projecting from the bow of a vessel to which the anchor is hoisted and secured. The compartment in which the anchor chain is stored. When a vessel has the wind before its beam or is sailing as close to the wind as possible. Compartment within a ship where surgeons attended to battle casualties.

commanding â•… officer concentrated â•… fire conn contact mine continuous â•… fire cottonclad

course coxswain CSS deck division draft ensign executive â•… officer fathom fetch fire ship first rate flagship floating â•… battery flotilla

Glossary of Naval Termsâ•‡ | 805

The senior officer of the ship. The firing of the batteries of two or more ships at one target. To direct the helmsman as to the movements of the helm. A mine designed to detonate on contact with a ship’s hull. Firing of each gun when ready without regard to the readiness of any other gun. Confederate gunboats during the Civil War that were given double pine bulkheads bolted together and stuffed with compressed cotton to serve as protection against small-arms fire only. A number had reinforced bows of oak and iron, enabling them to act as rams. They mounted only one or two guns each but were somewhat faster and more agile than their Union counterparts. Direction sailed by a vessel. A sailor at the helm or a sailor in charge of a ship’s boat and crew. Acronym for Confederate States Ship, meaning vessels of the Confederate States Navy. The horizontal platform of a vessel that forms the floor. Shipboard organization of crew members. Vertical distance from the lowest point of the keel to the waterline, the depth of water at which a vessel floats. 1. National flag or banner. 2. Current: Lowest rank of a commissioned naval officer. Officer who is second-in-command of a vessel, squadron, etc. Also referred to as the XO (modern usage). Unit of measurement equal to six feet. To reach by sailing against the wind or tide. A ship loaded with combustible materials, set afire, and launched into enemy ships. Classification of the largest naval vessels. See also rate. Ship carrying the commander of a fleet or squadron. A type of warship, often improvised or experimental, designed for defensive firepower and carrying a heavy armament but with few other qualities as a warship. A grouping of smaller warships that may be part of a larger fleet. The word derives from the Spanish diminutive of flota (“fleet”); thus, the term “flotilla” means “little fleet.” A flotilla includes all small surface vessels, usually the same class of ship, under the command of a captain.


fluke fore forecastle galley general â•… quarters guard ship gunboat gun deck gunner gun-port lids gun room hatch hawser head heading heel helm helmsman hold holystone hors de â•… combat hulk

hull hulled hurricane â•… deck in irons

in ordinary international â•… waters

The broad end of each arm of an anchor, which fastens into the sea bottom. Toward or near the bow. Forward section of the main deck. Pronounced “foc’sle.” Area of a vessel where food is prepared. Call to man battle stations in preparation for action. A warship charged with the responsibility of protecting a harbor, naval dockyard, or anchorage. Shallow-draft steam-driven naval vessels. Used mostly on inland waterways and often armored. See also river gunboat. The main deck of a frigate that supports its battery. An officer whose duties are to take charge of artillery and ammuÂ� nition of the ship and to train the crew in the use of its guns. Outside covers or lids to protect the gun ports from weather. The compartment on the aft end of the gun deck of the ship, generally for the use of the gunner. A door or opening on a vessel. A thick rope used for towing and mooring. A ship’s toilet, traditionally located at the bow of a sail ship. Direction in which a vessel’s head is pointing; its course. To list to one side as a result of wind pressure or shift in weight. The tiller used to control a vessel’s rudder. See also wheel. A sailor steering the ship. See also coxswain. Lower compartment of a ship used for storage. Piece of sandstone used by crew members to scrub the deck. French phrase meaning “out of the fight.” In nautical terms it stands for a vessel disabled during combat. An obsolete ship stripped of fittings and permanently moored, especially for use as storage or as an accommodation vessel for personnel or as a prison ship. Actual body of a vessel, excluding superstructure, rigging, masts, and rudder. Shot in the hull, normally fired at point-blank range. Highest area located above the casemate on river ironclads. The pilothouse was located here. See also weather decks. Condition whereby through lack of wind, a sailing ship is unable to move while heading into the wind and attempting to tack. A ship laid up in reserve. All waters apart from nations’ territorial waters.

ironclad jack

jib jibe keel knot ladder laid up larboard

lee leeward length â•… between â•… perpen- â•… diculars

letter of â•… marque

liberty line list magazine main battery main deck manning â•… the rail mark


Term for a wooden warship protected by iron plate and later made largely of iron. 1. A starred blue flag flown aboard vessels that represents the blue field of U.S. flag. 2. Moniker for an enlisted sailor. See also tar. A triangular sail bent to a foremast stay. To change from one tack to the other by turning the stern through the wind. Backbone of a vessel. The lowest timber or steel plate running fore and aft along the centerline of the hull. Unit of speed at sea, equal to one nautical mile per hour. Term for stairs aboard a vessel. A sailing ship in reserve, without masts or rigging. Antiquated term for left side of a ship when facing toward the bow; replaced by the term “port” to avoid confusion with the term “starboard.” The direction toward which the wind blows. Downwind, away from the wind. One measurement of the length of a ship. It was taken along the waterline from the forward surface of the stem, or main bow perpendicular member, to the after surface of the sternpost, or main stern perpendicular member. The length between perpendiculars measurement was believed to give a reasonable idea of the ship’s carrying capacity, for it excluded the small, often unusable volume contained in the ship’s overhanging ends. Government license issued to private vessels allowing them to raid enemy shipping. Confederate president Jefferson Davis’s issuance of these permits prompted President Abraham Lincoln to declare a naval blockade of all Southern ports. Authorized absence from duty. General term for the ropes used aboard a vessel. The angle of a ship’s tilt to one side. Area of a ship where ammunition and powder are stored. See also powder room. Ship’s battery made up of its largest guns (or missiles in modern usage). The uppermost complete deck. See also hurricane deck and weather decks. When crew members stand evenly spaced on the side of the ship while rendering honors to state officials. Also termed “manning the yards.” An object that marks a position, such as an aid to navigation.


mast mess deck midshipman

midships minesweeper mizzenmast monitor

mortar, naval

mortar boat

nautical mile overhead overtaking paymaster picket boat pilot

A long pole or spar rising from the keel or deck of a vessel that supports the yards, booms, sails, and rigging. Area of ship for dining. Rank of a naval officer in training. The term is derived from traditional sailing vessels when trainees were berthed amidships between officers in the aft and enlisted personnel forward. See amidships. Ship detailed to remove mines. The mast aft or next aft of the mainmast of a vessel; the third mast from the bow. Ship type. Generally a relatively small warship that was slow in speed but carried a few disproportionately large guns for its size and was used for coastal operations to blockade harbors or rivers and to engage enemy ships or shore installations there. The first monitors were turreted ironclad warships inspired by the original USS Monitor of Civil War renown and the coastal ships that closely followed it in design. The classification of “monitor” was sometimes a generic term for any turreted ship. A short artillery piece designed for high-angle fire over obstacles. Mortars of the Civil War period had a large bore in proportion to length and fired explosive shell. They were usually mounted at a fixed angle with the trunnions at the breech end. Range was adjusted by varying the powder charge. The most common Civil War naval mortar had a 13-inch bore. Small vessel designed to carry a mortar. Union mortar boats of the Civil War were designed specifically to engage the Confederate river batteries. They were 60- by 25-feet in size and were designated by numbers rather than names, and their inwardsloping sides were plated with half-inch iron to protect against small-arms fire. The mortar boats had no motive power and were moved about by tugs. Unit of measurement at sea, equal to 6,076 feet. Term for the ceiling or deck above one’s head on board a vessel. Coming up to another vessel from any point abaft that vessel’s beam. Officer in charge of maintaining the ship’s books and procuring supplies. A boat serving as a picket, placed to provide warning of the approach of an enemy. A qualified navigator authorized to pilot or direct incoming and outgoing vessels in a particular pilotage area.

pilothouse


Enclosure on the main deck used for steering. On Union ironclads it was located on the hurricane deck. A mark made on a navigation chart to outline course, speed, plot bearing, and position of the ship and various objects on the shore and sea. Rear upper deck. poop port As a direction, it is the lefthand side of the ship when facing forward. powder room Space in which gunpowder charges are stored. privateer Privately owned vessel authorized to attack enemy shipping. See also letter of marque. False or dummy gun, often used by merchantmen in the Age of Quaker gun Fighting Sail to ward off pirates and even enemy warships. Part of the deck that is designated for both official and ceremoquarterdeck nial functions. It is also where crew members board the ship by gangways. See general quarters. quarters Gun placed to enable it to rake an enemy vessel. raker raking To fire projectiles the length of an enemy’s vessel. rate Class of warship determined by the number of its guns (generally from 1st rate of 100 guns or more to 6th rate of 32 guns); also the level of a sailor’s rating. river gunboat Small warship carrying one or more guns and having a broad underwater body and a shallow draft. Formerly used in inland waters. A ball of iron, the size of which is expressed by its weight or round shot the diameter of its gun’s bore. Device for steering a vessel, usually fitted at the stern. rudder running gear All rigging, ropes, and gear that are free to move. running Lights used by ships when they are under way. â•… lights salvo The simultaneous firing of a number of guns. scaling The cleaning of the inside of a cannon by igniting a small quantity of powder. This discharges any dirt of other debris inside the cannon. A two-masted sail ship with the foremast and mainmast stepped schooner nearly amidships. A large flat-bottomed boat with broad square ends used for scow transporting bulk material such as coal or refuse. See also barge. scupper An opening through the bulwarks of a vessel above the waterline that allows water to drain off the deck.


scuttling sextant sound

spar spar torpedo squadron starboard star shell stay steamer stern stern chaser tack

tar timberclads

tinclads

tonnage topside

The intentional letting of water into a ship’s hull in order to sink it. Instrument used to determine latitude and longitude by measuring the angular distances to the stars. 1. Narrow passage of water between land masses. 2. To find the water’s depth by measuring distance from keel to water’s bottom. A stout rounded wood dowel used to support sails. An explosive device or mine placed at the end of a long pole or spar for attacks against enemy warships. A detachment of ships on an expedition commanded by a flag officer. The righthand side of the ship when facing forward. A shell fired from a gun that explodes in midflight to provide illumination or is used for signaling. Large strong rope or wire used to support a vessel’s mast. A vessel propelled by a steam engine. The aft end of the ship. Gun that fires directly astern of the ship. Also termed “stern chase.” 1. Noun. Direction of a vessel’s fore and aft line relative to the wind, “starboard tack” meaning with the wind on the starboard side. 2. Verb. To turn a vessel’s head through the wind, thus bringing the wind on the other bow. Moniker for an enlisted sailor. See also jack. Early Civil War warships, part of the riverine force created by the U.S. government to fight on the inland waters in the West. Wooden side-wheel freight-and-passenger steamers were converted into gunboats, and five-inch-thick oak was installed to provide protection against rifle fire, hence the name “timberclad.” U.S. stern-wheel and side-wheel warships supplied to the Mississippi Squadron. These light vessels were armored with metal plate less than an inch thick, capable of protecting only against small-arms fire. Of very light draft (only two feet for many of them), they were specifically developed for service on the shallow rivers emptying into the Mississippi and provided highly effective service in Union patrol and interdiction operations along these waterways. The measure of weight of a vessel. Area above the compartments of a ship. A reference to the hurricane deck, weather deck, or main deck.

torpedo boat train true bearing trunnions tugboat turret ship underway USS van watch weather â•… decks weigh anchor wheel windlass windward yard yawl


In the Civil War, a small warship carrying a spar torpedo forward, designed to sink an enemy ship. To move a gun or gun turret in a horizontal plane. Angle between observer’s meridian and the great circle passing through observer and object observed. Two knobs or arms that project from opposite sides of an artillery piece, supporting it in its carriage or mounting. A compact, powerful, and strongly built boat used for towing and pushing. Also known as a towboat. Warship carrying its main armament in a turret or turrets. A ship that is not fastened to the shore or ground. This does not necessarily mean that it is making way through the water. Acronym for United States Ship, meaning vessels of the U.S. Navy. The foremost division of any naval armament, or the part that leads the way into battle or advances first in the order of sailing. Period of time in which the nautical day is divided, usually four-hour intervals. Decks that are open to the wind and sea. To pull in the anchor in preparation of getting under way. A ship’s steering device. Cables connect the rudder to the wheel. See also helm. A winch used to lower and raise a vessel’s anchor. In the direction the wind is coming from; the opposite of leeward. A long spar tapered toward each end used to support the head of a square sail. 1. A small boat aboard a larger vessel used for rescue and transport. 2. A two-masted sail ship with a mainsail and one or more jibs with a mizzenmast aft. Richard Donohue, Spencer C. Tucker, and William E. Whyte III


Bibliography

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List of Editors and Contributors

Volume Editor Dr. Spencer C. Tucker Senior Fellow Military History, ABC-CLIO, LLC

Assistant Editors Dr. Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr. Fellow Military History, ABC-CLIO, LLC

William E. Whyte III Adjunct Professor Northampton Community College

Contributors F. Michael Angelo Thomas Jefferson University

Richard Donohue Independent Scholar

Walter F. Bell Information Services Librarian Aurora University

Andrew Duppstadt Assistant Curator of Education North Carolina Division of Historic Sites

Claude G. Berube U.S. Naval Academy

Paul E. Fontenoy North Carolina Maritime Museum

Jim Birdseye Independent Scholar

John Foley Independent Scholar

Dr. Kenneth J. Blume Professor of History Albany College of Pharmacy

Dr. John C. Fredriksen Independent Scholar

Dr. Shannon A. Brown National Museum of American History Smithsonian Institution

Charles Dana Gibson Independent Scholar

827

828 |â•‡ List of Editors and Contributors

Dr. Michael R. Hall Department of History Armstrong Atlantic State University Dr. Jennifer Harrison Kaplan University Joseph Heim Independent Scholar Glenn E. Helm Director Navy Department Library Sean M. Heuvel Independent Scholar

Jeff Kinard Guilford Technical Community College Matthew Krogman Independent Scholar Andrew Lambert Independent Scholar Jeannine Loftus Independent Scholar Lieutenant Colonel Robert A. Lynn Florida Guard

Gerald D. Holland Jr. American Military University

Dr. Jack McCallum Adjunct Professor Department of History and Geography Texas Christian University

C. Alvin Hughes Department of History Austin Peay State University

Dr. Wesley Moody Florida Community College at Jacksonville

Dr. John A. Hutcheson Jr. Vice President for Academic Affairs Dalton State College

Dr. Malcolm Muir Jr. Department of History Virginia Military Institute

Walter Jaffee Independent Scholar

Jennifer Murray Auburn University

Dr. Judson L. Jeffries The Ohio State University

Timothy Neeno Independent Scholar

Gary D. Joiner Independent Scholar

Eric W. Osbourne Virginia Military Institute

Richard F. Kehrberg Independent Scholar

Donald A. Petrie Independent Scholar

John Robert Kennedy Supervisory Assistant Professor U.S. Army Command and General Staff College

Richard W. Peuser Archivist National Archives

Dr. Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr. Fellow Military History, ABC-CLIO, LLC Dr. Ethan S. Rafuse Department of Military History U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Rein Department of History United States Air Force Academy Bradley Rodgers Independent Scholar Captain Carl Otis Schuster (Retired) U.S. Navy Hawaii Pacific University James Scythes West Chester University Donna Smith Northern Kentucky University Gene Allen Smith Department of History Texas Christian University Dr. Mark A. Smith Department of History, Geography, Political Science, and Criminal Justice Fort Valley State University Dr. Robert Francis Smith Assistant Dean, Humanities and Social Sciences Northampton Community College

List of Editors and Contributorsâ•‡ | 829

Theresa Storey Lamar University Dr. Stephen Svonavec Independent Scholar Joseph Thatcher Independent Scholar Dr. Spencer C. Tucker Senior Fellow Military History, ABC-CLIO, LLC Dallace William Unger Jr. Independent Scholar Esther K. Van Brunt Independent Scholar Charles James Wexler Auburn University William E. Whyte III Adjunct Professor Northampton Community College Charles Hughes Williams Texas A&M University Andrew Wilson Independent Scholar Dr. Bradford Wineman Department of Military History U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Dr. Steven E. Woodworth Professor of History Department of History Texas Christian University


Categorical Index

Individuals Adams, Charles Francis, Sr., 3 Adams, Henry A., 4 Alden, James, Jr., 22 Anderson, Joseph Reid, 29 Armstrong, James, 35 Armstrong, James F., 36 Bache, Alexander Dallas, 43 Bache, George Mifflin, 44 Bailey, Theodorus, 45 Bancroft, George, 49 Barney, Joseph Nicholson, 51 Barron, Samuel, 53 Bell, Charles Heyer, 56 Bell, Henry Haywood, 58 Blake, George Smith, 62 Breese, Samuel Livingston, 76 Bridge, Horatio, 77 Brooke, John Mercer, 78 Brown, Isaac Newton, 83 Buchanan, Franklin, 84 Bulloch, James Dunwody, 87 Butt, Walter Raleigh, 88 Carter, Jonathan H., 97 Carter, Samuel Powhatan, 98 Collins, Napoleon, 120 Colt, Samuel, 122 Cooke, James Wallace, 129 Coxetter, Louis Mitchell, 131 Craven, Thomas Tingey, 132

Craven, Tunis Augustus Macdonough, 134 Cushing, William Barker, 136 Dahlgren, John Adolph Bernard, 139 Davidson, Hunter, 147 Davis, Charles Henry, 148 Davis, Jefferson Finis, 149 Dewey, George, 153 Dornin, Thomas Aloysius, 156 Drayton, Percival, 157 Du Pont, Samuel Francis, 163 Eads, James Buchanan, 169 Eagle, Henry, 171 Ellet, Alfred Washington, 175 Ellet, Charles, Jr., 176 Engle, Frederick, 179 Ericsson, John, 180 Farragut, David Glasgow, 183 Farrand, Ebenezer, 185 Fauntleroy, Charles Magill, 187 Fitch, Le Roy, 189 Foote, Andrew Hull, 195 Forrest, French, 198 Fox, Gustavus Vasa, 245 Glassell, William T., 258 Glendy, William Marshall, 260 Godon, Sylvanus William, 261 Goldsborough, John Rodgers, 262 Goldsborough, Louis Malesherbes, 263

CI-1


Gregory, Francis Hoyt, 268 Gwin, William, 274 Hart, John Elliott, 286 Harwood, Andrew Allen, 288 Hitchcock, Robert Bradley, 295 Hoff, Henry Kuhn, 298 Hoge, Francis Lyell, 299 Hollins, George Nichols, 300 Horwitz, Phineas Jonathan, 302 Hull, Joseph Bartine, 305 Hunt, Timothy Atwater, 306 Ingraham, Duncan Nathaniel, 309 Isherwood, Benjamin Franklin, 323 Johnston, James D., 331 Jones, Catesby ap Roger, 333 Kell, John McIntosh, 336 Kilty, Augustus H., 339 Lanman, Joseph, 342 Lardner, James Lawrence, 343 Lavallette, Elie Augustus Frederick, 344 Lee, Samuel Phillips, 345 Lee, Sidney Smith, 347 Lenthall, John, 348 Lincoln, Abraham, 351 Livingston, John William, 354 Lockwood, Henry Hayes, 355 Loyall, Benjamin Pollard, 358 Lynch, William Francis, 359 Maffitt, John Newland, 363 Mahan, Alfred Thayer, 364 Mallory, Stephen Russell, 366 Marston, John, 374 Mason, James Murray, 376 Maury, Matthew Fontaine, 378 McCauley, Charles Stewart, 380 McKean, William Wister, 381 Mercer, Samuel, 391 Mervine, William, 392 Missroon, John Stoney, 408 Mitchell, John Kirkwood, 409 Montgomery, John Berrien, 432 Morris, Henry W., 433

Nelson, William, 465 Nicholson, William Carmichael, 481 Page, Richard Lucian, 493 Palmer, James Shedden, 494 Parker, Foxhall Alexander, Jr., 496 Parker, William Harwar, 497 Parrott, Robert Parker, 499 Paulding, Hiram, 503 Pearson, George Frederick, 507 Pendergast, Garrett Jesse, 508 Phelps, Seth Ledyard, 512 Poor, Charles Henry, 522 Pope, John, Jr., 523 Porter, David Dixon, 524 Porter, John Luke, 527 Porter, William David, 529 Powell, Levin Minn, 541 Preble, George Henry, 543 Price, Joseph, 545 Purviance, Hugh Young, 550 Radford, William, 557 Read, Charles William, 565 Ringgold, Cadwalader, 591 Rodgers, John, 601 Rowan, Stephen Clegg, 603 Sands, Benjamin Franklin, 611 Schneck, James Findlay, 614 Selfridge, Thomas Oliver, Jr., 619 Semmes, Raphael, 621 Sharp, William, 625 Shirk, James W., 634 Shubrick, William Branford, 635 Simms, Charles Carroll, 638 Slidell, John, 639 Smalls, Robert, 641 Smith, Joseph, 642 Smith, Joseph Bryant, 643 Smith, William, 644 Stembel, Roger Nelson, 658 Stewart, Charles, 660 Stribling, Cornelius Kincheloe, 675 Stringham, Silas Horton, 676 Tattnall, Josiah, 690

Thatcher, Henry Knox, 696 Toucey, Isaac, 704 Tucker, John Randolph, 712 Turner, Thomas, 713 Van Brunt, Gershom Jaques, 719 Waddell, James Iredell, 739 Walke, Henry, 741 Walker, William Sparhawk, 742


Ward, James Harmon, 743 Webb, William Augustine, 749 Welles, Gideon, 750 Wilkes, Charles, 756 Wilkinson, John, 758 Winslow, John Ancrum, 762 Wood, John Taylor, 763 Worden, John Lorimer, 764

Events Alabama vs. Hatteras, 11 Alabama vs. Kearsarge, 13 Alabama Claims, 10 Albemarle, CSS, Destruction of, 18 Albemarle Sound, Battle of, 21 Arkansas, CSS, Union Attempts to Destroy, 32 Baton Rouge, Battle of, 55 Belmont, Battle of, 59 Blockade of the Confederacy, 66 Charleston, South Carolina, CSA Navy Attack on U.S. Navy Blockaders, 102 Charleston, South Carolina, Du Pont’s Attack on, 103 Chickasaw Bluffs, Battle of, 114 Drewry’s Bluff, First Battle of, 158 Dunn’s Bayou, Engagement at, 162 Dutch Gap, Battle of, 165 Elizabeth City, Battle of, 174 Enchantress Affair, 178 Fort Anderson and Wilmington, North Carolina, Union Operations against, 199 Fort Donelson, Battle of, 202 Fort Fisher Campaign, 205 Fort Harrison and Chaffin’s Bluff, Battle of, 208 Fort Henry, Battle of, 210 Fort Hindman, Battle of, 214 Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s Run Past, 216

Fort McAllister, Georgia, Union Attacks on, 226 Fort Sumter, Union Attacks on, 237 Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, Relief Efforts and Beginning of the Civil War, 239 Galveston, Battle of, 250 Galveston, Texas, Union Capture of, 255 Grand Gulf, Battle of, 265 Grand Gulf, Mississippi, Union Shelling of, 266 Greenville, Mississippi, Union Operations in the Vicinity of, 267 Hampton Roads, Battle of, 277 Hatteras Inlet, Union Assault on, 289 Haynes’ Bluff, Mississippi, Union Demonstration at, 291 Head of Passes, Battle of, 292 Island Number 10, Battle of, 324 Memphis, First Battle of, 388 Mobile, Siege of, 411 Mobile Bay, Battle of, 415 Morris Island, South Carolina, Union Operations against, 434 New Bern, North Carolina, Capture of, 469 New Bern, North Carolina, Confederate Raid on, 471 New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Capture of, 477 Peacemaker, Explosion of, 506 Peterhoff Crisis, 510


Phelps’s Raid, 513 Pittsburg Landing, 517 Plum Point Bend, Battle of, 519 Port Hudson, Louisiana, Action at, 530 Port Hudson, Louisiana, Siege of, 532 Port Royal Sound, Battle of, 534 Prize Cases, 548 Queen of the West, USS, 554 Red River Campaign, 569 Roanoke Island, North Carolina, Union Capture of, 598 Russian Fleet Visits to New York and San Francisco, 605 Sabine Pass, First Battle of, 607 Sabine Pass, Second Battle of, 608 Sewell’s Point, Virginia, U.S. Navy Shelling of, 624 Signal Hill Fire Support Mission, 638

Steele’s Bayou Expedition, 655 Stono River Expedition, 665 Sultana Disaster, 681 Trent Affair, 707 Trent’s Reach, Battle of, 708 Underwriter, USS, Confederate Expedition against, 717 Vicksburg, Mississippi, Mississippi Squadron Passage of, 721 Vicksburg, Mississippi, West Gulf Squadron Passage of, 723 Vicksburg Campaign, 724 Wassaw Sound, Battle of, 746 White River Expedition, U.S. Navy, 754 Wilmington, North Carolina, Engagements at, 760 Yazoo Pass Expedition, 767

Groups and Organizations African American Sailors, 5 Atlantic Blockading Squadron, 40 Blockade Board, 64 Blockade-Runners, 71 Coast Survey, U.S., 119 East Gulf Blockading Squadron, 172 Gulf Blockading Squadron, 270 Ironclad Board, U.S. Navy, 312 James River Squadron, CSA, 330 Marine Corps, CSA, 370 Marine Corps, U.S., 372 Mississippi Marine Brigade, 398 Mississippi River Defense Fleet, 401 Mississippi Squadron, U.S. Navy, 404 Mosquito Fleet, 439 Naval Brigade, 448 Naval Efficiency Board, 449

Naval Investigating Board, Confederate Congress, 453 Navy, CSA, 457 Navy, U.S., 461 North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, 484 Officers and Seamen in the U.S. and Confederate Navies, 487 Permanent Commission, 510 Potomac Flotilla, 539 Ram Fleet, U.S., 559 Revenue Cutter Service, U.S., 585 Savannah River Squadron, 613 South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, 646 Squadron, 650 Submarine Battery Service, 677 West Gulf Blockading Squadron, 753

Places

Brooklyn Navy Yard, 82 Cairo Naval Station, 95 Charleston, South Carolina, 100 Charlotte Navy Yard, 112

Albemarle Sound, 20 Arkansas River, 34 Boston Navy Yard, 75

City Point, Virginia, 117 Columbus Navy Yard, 124 Cumberland River, 135 Fort Monroe, Virginia, 228 Fort Morgan, Alabama, 229 Fort Pickens, Florida, 231 Fort Pillow, Tennessee, 232 Fort Sumter, South Carolina, 234 Fort Warren, Massachusetts, 244 Galveston, Texas, 253 Gulf of Mexico, 272 Hampton Roads, Virginia, 283 James River, 329 Mare Island Navy Yard, 369 Mississippi River, 400 Mississippi Sound, 403 Missouri River, 407 Mobile, Alabama, 411 Mobile Bay, 413 Mound City Naval Station, 441 Naval Academy, Confederate, 445 Naval Academy, United States, 447


New Orleans, Louisiana, 476 Newport News, Virginia, 480 Norfolk Navy Yard, 481 Ohio River, 490 Pensacola Navy Yard, 509 Philadelphia Naval Asylum, 515 Philadelphia Navy Yard, 516 Portsmouth Navy Yard, 538 Potomac River, 540 Red River, 568 Richmond, Virginia, 589 Sackets Harbor Naval Station, 610 Savannah River, 612 Scofield and Markham Gate City Iron Works, 616 Selma Naval Gun Foundry, 620 Shelby Iron Company, 626 Ship Island, Mississippi, 632 Tennessee River, 695 Tredegar Iron Works, 705 Washington Navy Yard, 745 Yazoo River, 769

Ideas and Movements Amphibious Warfare, 25 Anaconda Strategy, 27 Commerce Raiding, Confederate, 125 Discipline, Naval, 156

Guerre de Course, 269 Riverine Warfare, 592 Seamen, Recruitment of, 617

Technologies, Objects and Artifacts Alabama, CSS, 7 Albemarle, CSS, 16 Alligator, USS, 24 Arkansas, CSS, 30 Artillery Projectiles, Naval, 37 Atlanta, CSS, 39 Balloons, 47 Baltic, CSS, 48 Baron de Kalb, USS, 51 Benton, USS, 61 Black Hawk, USS, 62 Bormann Fuze, 74

Brooke Guns, 80 Brooklyn, USS, 81 Cairo, USS, 91 Cairo-class River Ironclads, 93 Carondelet, USS, 96 Chickamauga, CSS, 112 Cincinnati, USS, 116 Coal Torpedo, 118 Colt Navy Revolver, 123 Conestoga, USS, 128 Cottonclads, 130 Dahlgren Boat Howitzers, 141


Dahlgren Guns, 144 Davids, CSS, 146 Dictator, USS, 154 Dunderberg, USS, 160 Eastport, USS, 173 Essex, USS, 182 Fingal, CSS, 188 Floating Battery, 189 Florida, CSS, 190 Flotilla, 192 Forest Rose, USS, 197 Galena, USS, 249 Georgia, CSS, Commerce Raider, 256 Georgia, CSS, Ironclad Floating Battery, 258 Gunner’s Tools, 273 Harriet Lane, USS, 285 Hartford, USS, 287 H. L. Hunley, CSS, 296 Housatonic, USS, 302 Hulk, 305 Ironclads, Confederate, 314 Ironclads, Union, 319 Kearsarge, USS, 335 Keokuk, USS, 337 Laird Rams, 341 Lexington, USS, 350 Louisiana, CSS, 356 Louisville, USS, 357 Manassas, CSS, 368 Medal of Honor, U.S. Navy, 382 Medicine, Naval, 383 Michigan, USS, 393 Minnesota, USS, 395 Mississippi, CSS, 396 Mississippi, USS, 397 Missouri, CSS, 406 Monitor, USS, 427 Montauk, USS, 431 Mortar Boats, 437 Mortars, 438 Mound City, USS, 440

Nashville, CSS, Cruiser, 443 Nashville, CSS, Ironclad, 444 Naval Gunnery, 451 Naval Ordnance, 454 Neosho and Osage, USS, 467 Neuse, CSS, 468 New Ironsides, USS, 472 New Ironsides, USS, Attack on by CSS David, 474 Parrott Guns, 500 Passaic-class Monitors, 502 Pawnee, USS, 505 Pittsburg, USS, 517 Powhatan, USS, 542 Privateers, 546 Puritan, USS, 549 Quartermaster Transports, 553 Queen of the West, USS, 554 Raleigh, CSS, 558 Rappahannock, CSS, 563 Receiving Ship, 567 Richmond, CSS, 586 Richmond, USS, 588 Roanoke, USS, 596 Screw Propeller, 616 Shenandoah, CSS, 628 Side-wheeler, 637 Spar Torpedo, 648 Squib, CSS, 650 Star of the West, USS, 652 Steam Propulsion, 653 Stern-wheeler, 659 Stevens Battery, 660 Stone Fleets, 662 Stonewall, CSS, 663 Submarines, 679 Sumter, CSS, 683 Susquehanna, USS, 684 Tacony, CSS, 687 Tallahassee, CSS, 687 Tecumseh, USS, 691 Tender, 693

Tennessee, CSS, 694 Timberclads, 697 Tinclads, 698 Torpedoes, 701


Tyler, USS, 714 Vanderbilt, USS, 720 Virginia, CSS, 734 Webb, CSS, 747

Agreements, Reports, and Other Documents, Declaration of Paris, 152 Letters of Marque and Reprisal, 349

Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies, 489

Miscellaneous, Food and Drink aboard Ship, 192 Iron and Steel Manufacture, Impact on Ship Construction, 310 Monitor Mania, 430 Ranks, Union and Confederate Navies, 561

Shipboard Life, 630 Strategy, Confederate Naval, 667 Strategy, Union Naval, 671 Tonnage, 699


Index

Abbot, Trevett, 102 Adams, Charles Francis, Jr., 3 Adams, Charles Francis, Sr., 3–4, 257 Adams, Henry A., 4–5 Adams, Henry A., Jr., 5 Adams, John, 3, 447 Adams, John Quincy, 3, 4 Adelaide, 289 Advance, 113, 688 African American army troops, 435 African American sailors, 5–7, 6 (image), 488 medal of honor winners among, 6 restriction of their tasks aboard ship, 6 Agawan, 166 Alabama, xxvi, xxix, 4, 7–8, 9 (map), 10, 87, 88, 126, 127, 270, 336–337, 459, 460, 464, 592, 609, 621, 623, 669, 720–721 armament of, 8, 14 construction and equipment of, 7–8 See also Alabama claims; Alabama vs. Â�Hatteras; Alabama vs. Kearsarge Alabama claims, 10–11, 257 Alabama vs. Hatteras, 11–12, 127 Alabama vs. Kearsarge, 13–14, 13 (image), 15 (map), 16, 335, 374, 387, 623, 762–763 Alar, 256 Albany, 336 Albatross, 178, 286–287, 531 Albemarle, xxix, 16–18, 17 (image), 21, 130, 317, 346, 364, 528, 649 destruction of, 18–20, 137 Albemarle Sound, 20–21 Albemarle Sound, Battle of, 21–22 Alden, James, Jr., 22–24, 419, 421 Alexander II (tsar of Russia), 605, 606 Alexander, Edward Porter, 47

Alfred Robb, 514 Alliance, 121, 191 Alligator, 24–25, 63, 680 Alligator River, 21 Althea, 426 Amelia, 689 American Civil War, overview of naval operations during, xxv–xxx amount of coastline and river miles involved in naval operations, xxv Union blockade of the South, xxvi use of ironclads by both North and South, xxvi–xxvii Amphibious warfare, 25–27 Anaconda strategy (“Anaconda Plan” or “Scott’s Anaconda”), 27–29, 28 (image), 463, 592–593 Anacostia, 505, 539 Anderson, Aaron, 6 Anderson, Joseph Reid, 29–30, 706–707 Anderson, Robert, 240, 242, 243, 245 Andrews, W. S. G., 54 Appleton Belle, 513, 514 Appomattox, 174, 439, 639 Appomattox River, 24, 117, 680 Archer, 566 Archimedes, 616 Argus, 635, 661 Arizona, 609 Arkansas, xxviii, 30–32, 31 (image), 83, 274, 287, 315, 316, 358, 390, 406, 458, 529, 554, 566, 588, 715, 727 armament of, 31 and the Battle of Baton Rouge, 31–32, 55–56 Union attempts to destroy, 32–34 Arkansas River, 34–35

I-1

I-2 |â•‡ Index Armstrong, James, 35–36, 185 Armstrong, James F., 36 Army of Northern Virginia, xxviii, xxx, 205, 208, 331, 353, 387, 471, 590, 759, 760, 761 Aroostook, 158, 159 Arthur Middleton, 67 (image) Artillery projectiles, naval, 37–39, 37 (image) explosive shells, 37–38 fuses, 38 grape and canister shot, 38 solid shot, 37, 38 Atlanta, xxviii, 39–40, 39 (image), 188, 602, 614, 646, 647, 687, 711, 747, 747 Atlantic, 241, 535 Atlantic Blocking Squadron, 26, 40–41, 67, 391–392, 395 Augusta, 102, 103, 536 Avenger, 561 Bache, Alexander Dallas, 43–44, 64, 120, 510 Bache, B. F., 383 Bache, George Mifflin, 44–45, 733 Bailey, Joseph, 582–583 Bailey, Theodorus, 45–46, 104, 172, 220, 343, 477, 479 Bailey’s Dam. See Red River Campaign Balloons, 47–48 Baltic, 48–49, 186, 242, 245, 332, 415, 417, 444, 447, 505, 639 Bancroft, George, 49–50, 447, 635 Banks, Nathaniel P., 414, 526, 531–532, 608–609 actions in the Red River Campaign, 571–572, 577–578, 580, 581, 584 overconfidence of, 578 and the seizure of Confederate cotton, 575–576 See also Port Hudson, Louisiana, siege of Barnard, John G., 64 Barney, Joseph Nicholson, 51 Baron de Kalb, 51–53, 52 (image), 91, 94, 215, 291, 728, 730, 767, 768 Barron, James, 63 Barron, Samuel, 53–55, 257, 740 Barrow, Robert B., 296 Bartol, Barnabas, 472 Barton, Seth, 471

Barton, W. P. C., 383 Bates, James, 394 Baton Rouge, Battle of, 31–32, 55–56 casualties of, 56 Battery Bee, 435 Battery Beauregard, 435 Battery Gregg, 434, 435 Bayou City, 131, 251 Beall, John Y., 394 Beaufort, 174, 209, 277, 279, 439, 497, 591, 626, 709 Beauregard, Pierre G. T., 100, 101, 103, 233, 243, 309, 325–326, 388, 474, 476, 521, 646, 679 belief in the use of spar torpedoes, 648 Bell, Charles Heyer, 56–57 Bell, Henry Haywood, 58–59, 220 Bell, Lloyd James, 371 Belle Isle Works, 706, 707 Belmont, Battle of, 59–61 casualties of, 60 Benefit, 570 (image) Bennet, John W., 444 Benton, 61–62, 170, 265, 266, 275, 321, 388, 437 (image), 520, 521, 573, 574, 721, 722 Bessemer, Henry, 310 Biddle, James, 635 Bienville, 87, 354, 420, 536 Big Bethel, Battle of, 228, 480 Birney, William, 666 Bishop, Joshua, 268 Black Diamond, 186 Black Hawk, 62–63, 215, 291, 467, 573, 578, 580 armament of, 699 specifications of, 699 Black Warrior, 174 Blair, Montgomery, 241, 245 Blake, George Smith, 63–64, 447 Blake, Homer, 12 Blake, Robert, 6 Blockade Board, 64–66, 646 Blockade-runners, 71–74, 71 (image), 73 (image) Confederate regulations concerning, 72–73 role of in supplying medicinal drugs for the Confederacy, 387 success of, 73–74

Boggs, Charles S., 225 Boggs, William R., 573–574 Bombshell, 17, 21 Bonita, 719 Booth, John Wilkes, 353, 746 Bormann, Charles G., 74 Bormann Fuze, 74–75 Boston, 507, 508 Boston Navy Yard, 75–76 Boxer, 133 Bragg, Braxton, 199–200, 231–232, 466, 468, 476, 760 Branch, Lawrence O’Bryan, 469 Brand, Frederick B., 555 Brandywine, 496 Breckenridge, John C., 32, 55, 56, 151, 640 Breese, K. P., 207 Breese, Samuel Livingston, 76–77, 291 Brent, Joseph L., 555, 748 Bridge, Horatio, 77–78 Brooke, John Mercer, 78–79, 78 (image), 367, 446, 456, 458, 459, 528, 706, 734, 735 Brooke guns, xix, 80–81, 80 (image), 456 Brooklyn, 23, 58, 68, 81–82, 133, 135, 217, 220, 266, 369, 417, 419, 420, 421, 422, 522, 547, 652, 683, 692 (image), 723 collision with the Kineo, 223 drunkenness aboard, 194 Brooklyn Navy Yard, 82–83 Brown, Albert Gallatin, 453 Brown, George, 554, 729 Brown, Henry, 231 Brown, Isaac Newton, 31, 32, 33, 83–84 Brown, John, 373 Brown, John S., 292 Browne, Harry, 194 Brunel, I. K., 617 Buchanan, Franklin, 84–86, 85 (image), 140, 186, 198, 277, 278, 332, 447, 458, 691, 694, 746, 751 actions at the Battle of Mobile Bay, 86, 415, 420, 423, 424, 425 as an advocate for ironclads, 85 promotion of to rear admiral, 85 Buchanan, James, 231, 245, 652, 676, 705 Buckner, Simon Bolivar, 202, 204 Buell, Don Carlos, 210, 466, 517, 518

Indexâ•‡ | I-3 Bulloch, James Dunwody, 7, 39, 87–88, 125, 126, 188, 190, 256, 317, 367, 628, 740, 759 Burnside, Ambrose, 105, 264, 469–470, 598 Bushnell, Cornelius, 312, 313 Bushnell, David, 181, 616, 679 Butler, Benjamin F., 25, 26–27, 118, 119, 166, 217, 218, 228, 476, 480, 526 actions at the attack on Fort Fisher, 205–207 as “Beast Butler,” 479 Butt, Walter Raleigh, 88–90 Cahill, Thomas, 55 Cairo, 91–93, 92 (image), 94, 170, 388, 441, 619, 703, 727, 769 Cairo Naval Station, 95 Caleb Cushing, 566 Calhoun, 293, 547 Calhoun, John C., 377 California, 370 Camanche, 502, 503 Cameron, Simon, 241, 242 Camp Beall, 371 Camp Johnston, 60 Campbell, John A., 284 Campbell, William P. A., 564, 565 Canandaigua, 658 Canby, Edward R. S., 412, 414–415, 418, 426, 584 Cannon, Walker, 474 Cannstadt, Pavel L’vovich Schilling von, 701 Canonicus, 207, 602 Cape Fear River, 114, 199, 201, 760, 761 Carondelet, 31, 83, 91, 94, 96–97, 96 (image), 170, 203, 211, 212, 265, 327, 388, 437 (image), 520, 573, 577, 583, 656, 722, 742 Carter, Jonathan H., 97–98 Carter, Samuel Powhatan, 98–100, 356, 466 Carter, William F., 564 Casco, 320–321, 745 (image) Catskill, 109, 431, 435, 502 Cayuga, 46, 217, 220, 221, 222 Cecile, 363 Ceres, 21, 22, 266 Chaffin’s Bluff, Battle of. See Fort Harrison and Chaffin’s Bluff, Battle of Chambliss, N. R., 620 Chameleon, 689, 759

I-4 |â•‡ Index Champion, 267 Champion No. 3, 581, 583 Champion No. 5, 581–582, 583 Chancellorsville, Battle of, xxviii Chaplain, James C., 175, 744 Charleston, 83, 316 Charleston, South Carolina, xxvi, xxix, 24, 65, 68, 72, 83, 100–102, 140, 227, 296, 303, 309, 338, 371, 436, 459, 460, 464, 501, 537, 587, 602, 614, 663, 665, 668, 679, 712, 713 blockade of, 68, 101 Confederate naval attack on Union blockade of, 102–103 defenses of, 100–101 symbolic importance of, 100 See also Charleston, South Carolina, Du Pont’s attack on; Fort Sumter Charleston, South Carolina, Du Pont’s attack on, 103–111, 164–165, 431, 646–647, 765 attacks on Fort McAllister, 106–107 attempt to block the main channel, 104 casualties of, 110 and the defensive strength of Charleston’s forts, 105–106 Du Pont’s strategy concerning, 107–108 ironclads as key to Union attack, 106 preparations for defense of Charleston, 105 specific damage suffered by Union ships Â�during, 110 Charleston Harbor, 101, 103, 107, 110, 239 (map), 297, 316, 503, 543, 647, 743 See also Fort Sumter Charlotte Navy Yard, 112 Chase, Salmon, 47 Chase, William, 231 Chattahoochee, 333, 558, 614 Cheatham, Frank, 60 Cheeney, William, 680 Chenango, 119 Cheops, 88, 318 Cherbourg, France, xxix, 8, 13, 257, 337, 374, 459, 464 Cherub, 183 Chesapeake, 661 Chew, Robert L., 242 Chicago, 365 Chickamauga, 87, 112–114, 126, 688, 759 armament of, 113

specifications of, 112–113 Chickasaw, 170, 322, 417, 419, 420, 421, 424, 425 Chickasaw Bluffs, 233, 727 Chickasaw Bluffs, Battle of, 114–116, 292, 728 casualties of, 115–116, 728 Chicora, 102, 106, 259, 303, 309, 316, 528, 587, 614, 645, 646, 665, 712, 713 Chillicothe, 467, 573, 577, 578, 730, 767, 768 Chimo, 745 (image) Choctaw, 291, 292, 573 Churchill, Thomas J., 215 Cincinnati, 44, 94, 116–117, 117 (image), 170, 211, 212, 215, 437 (image), 441, 519, 594, 656, 658, 733 sinking of, 520 Cinecqa, 381 City of Memphis, 385, 386 City of New York, 599 City Point, Virginia, 117–118 City-class ships. See Ironclads, Cairo-class river ironclads Clara Dolsen, 754 Clarence, 566, 687 Clermont, 653 Clifton, 250, 251, 252, 253, 609–610, 723 Coal torpedo, 118–119 Coast Blockading Squadron, 40, 41, 67, 391, 539, 646, 676 Coast Survey, U.S., 43, 63, 64, 119–120, 134, 344, 347, 363, 510, 585, 643, 758, 759 Collier, Elisha, 122 Collins, John, 135, 420 Collins, Napoleon, 120–121, 191 Colonel Lovell, 389–390, 401, 402, 519 Colorado, 46, 263, 697 Colt, Samuel, 122–123, 701 Colt navy revolver, 123–124 Columbia, 316, 528 Columbus, 497 Columbus, Georgia, naval yard of, 124–125 Columbus, Kentucky (the “Confederate Â�Gibraltar”), 59–60 Comet, 263 Commerce raiding, xxvi, 125–128, 126 (image), 459–460 cost to the Union in hunting commerce Â�raiders, 127 procurement of raiding ships by the Confederacy, 125–126

total number of Union merchants ships taken by raiders, 127 See also Guerre de course Commodore Barney, 136, 651, 678, 709 Commodore Hull, 21, 22 Commodore Jones, 147, 678, 703 Commodore McDonough, 666 Commodore Morris, 651 Commodore Perry, 439, 600, 651 Concord, 601 Conestoga, 128–129, 169, 203, 211, 350, 404, 437 (image), 512, 513–514, 593, 619, 696, 698 reinforcement of with heavy guns and oak plating, 714–715 See also White River Expedition Confederacy, the, 3, 152 balloon program of, 47–48 extensive coastline of, 65 See also Confederacy, blockade of; Confederacy, naval strategy of; Navy, Confederate States of America (CSA) Confederacy, blockade of, 66–71, 67 (image), 462–463, 464, 548, 646, 673–674 blockade running, 68 cost of, 70 debate concerning the effectiveness of, 69–70 financial rewards of blockade running, 68–69 increase in the number of blockaders, 69 organization of, 67 Confederacy, naval strategy of, 667–671 advantage of the South’s defensive position, 667 defensive strategy of, 670 and Jefferson Davis’s strategic mistake of supporting a cotton embargo, 667–668 lack of coastal defense policy, 668 offensive strategy based on the use of ironclads, 669–670 strategy for breaking the Union blockade, 668–669 “Confederate Gibraltar,” 59–60 Confederate River Defense Fleet, 130, 218, 401–402, 594 defeat of at Memphis, 725 Confederate States, 330, 567 Confederate Torpedo Bureau, 702–703

Indexâ•‡ | I-5 Congress, xxvii, 85, 89, 133, 163, 277, 278, 279, 281, 330, 344, 360, 365, 375, 522, 644–645, 736 sinking of, 643–644 Connor, David, 268, 269 Conrad, Charles M., 453, 669 Constellation, 45, 601, 635, 661, 690, 697 Constitution, 22–23, 63, 163, 286, 344, 363, 380, 447, 496, 635, 661, 690, 743 Cook, Joseph J., 250–251, 255 Cooke, James Wallace, 17, 21, 129–130 C. P. Williams, 431 Corcoran, Michael, 179 Corps d’Afrique, 576 Cort, Henry, 310 Corwin, 758 Corypheus, 251, 252, 255 Cotton Plant, 17, 21 Cottonclads, 130–131, 251, 402 Countess, 574 Couronne, 13 Courtenay, Thomas Edgeworth, 118–119 Covington, 162, 573, 583 Cox, Jacob Dolson, 761 Coxetter, Louis Mitchell, 131–132 Craven, Thomas Tingey, 132–134, 223–224, 266–267, 664, 723 Craven, Tunis Augustus Macdonough, 132, 134–135, 420, 421 Cricket, 267, 268, 573, 574, 577, 578, 581, 582 Crimean War (1853–1856), 25, 190, 456, 702 See also Declaration of Paris (1856) Crocker, Frederick, 609, 610 Crosby, J. N., 304 Crowley, R. O., 678 Crozet, Claudius, 29 Crusader, 134 C. S. Bushnell and Company, 313, 319 Cumberland, xxvii, 85, 139, 177, 195, 198, 269, 277–279, 290, 330, 354, 375, 483, 504, 505, 508, 522, 557, 559, 619, 643, 736, 744 Cumberland River, xxvii, 26, 135–136, 196, 202, 696 Curlew, 536, 600 Curtis, Samuel, 339 Cushing, Alonzo, 138

I-6 |â•‡ Index Cushing, William Barker, xxix, 17, 18–19, 136–138, 137 (image), 346, 649 attack and destruction of the Albemarle by, 137 Cussler, Clive, 298 Cyane, 300, 635, 661, 676 D. A. January, 385–386 Dahlgren, John Adolph Bernard, xxix, 101, 108, 111, 139–141, 139 (image), 146, 196, 288, 309, 333, 338, 353, 435, 436, 448, 456, 475, 604, 647, 705, 746 attack of on Charleston Harbor, 237, 238 development of Dahlgren guns, 140 development of boat howitzers, 139–140 friendship with Lincoln, 140 See also Dahlgren boat howitzers; Dahlgren naval guns; Stono River Expedition Dahlgren, Ulrich, 140 Dahlgren boat howitzers, 139–140, 141–143, 142 (image) Dahlgren naval guns, xix, 140, 144–145, 145 (image), 321, 322, 455 Dahlia, 570 (image) Dai Ching, 666 Dale, 134, 147 Dana, Richard Henry, Jr., 548–549 Dandelion, 110, 338 Daniel Webster, 387 Danmark, 317 David, 101, 146, 259, 604, 647 attack of on the New Ironsides, 474–475 Davids, xxix, 146, 459, 474, 649, 670, 679, 680, 713 Davidson, Hunter, 147–148, 650–651, 677–678, 703 Davies, Rhys, 706 Davis, Charles Henry, 32, 33, 64, 148–149, 177, 233, 234, 312, 314, 388, 389, 405, 510, 512, 560, 594, 642, 723, 754 securing of the Upper Mississippi River by, 725, 727 See also Plum Point Bend, Battle of Davis, Henry, xxvii, xxviii Davis, Jefferson C., 466 Davis, Jefferson Finis, 89, 131, 149–152, 150 (image), 178, 179, 229, 243, 350, 394, 446, 457, 471, 546, 622, 678, 732, 760 “Cotton Diplomacy” of, 667–668 opinion of Stephen R. Mallory, 453

personality of, 151 political career of, 150–151 as president of the Confederate States of America (CSA), 151 threat of to hang Union officers, 547 Davis, John, 175 Dawn, 226, 227, 431 Daylight, 709 De Kraft, J. C. P., 420 de Lhuys, Drouyn, 564, 565 De Soto, 555, 729 de Villeroi, Brutus, 680 Deane, Francis B., 706 Decatur, Stephen, Jr., 56–57 Declaration of Paris (1856), 152, 546 Decotah, 625 Deerfield, 337 Deerhound, 14, 16 Defense, 218 Defiance, 401, 402 Delaware, 36, 166, 380, 600, 604 Demologos, 190, 654 Devastation, 617 Dewey, George, 153–154, 222, 225 DeWitt, Chester B., 632 Dick Fulton, 559, 561 Dictator, 154–156, 320, 549, 602 Dillard, R. K., 118 Discipline, naval, 156 Dispatch, 344 Disraeli, Benjamin, 377, 640, 708 Dixon, George F., 297, 304 Dobbin, James C., 449, 450 Dolphin, 57, 153, 363 Dornin, Thomas Aloysius, 156–157 Dorothea, 701 Dorsey, Sarah, 151 Douglas, Stephen A., 150 Dowling, Richard W., 609 Downes, John, 747 Dr. Beatty, 555, 748 Drake, Joseph, 211 Drayton, Percival, 157–158, 424 Drayton, Thomas F., 158 Drewry, 166, 209, 330, 709, 710–711 Drewry, Augustus H., 159 Drewry’s Bluff, First Battle of, 158–160, 185, 187, 249–250, 313, 371 casualties of, 160

Drewry’s Bluff, Second Battle of, 371 Du Pont, Francis H., 346 Du Pont, Samuel F., xxvi, xxix, 24, 25, 26, 41, 64, 65, 102, 140, 163–165, 164 (image), 196, 237, 305, 338, 343, 353, 373, 435, 503, 602, 647, 662, 714 and the capture of Port Royal, 164, 646 as head of the Naval Efficiency Board, 449–450 interest of in naval professionalism and reform, 163–164 naval boards served on, 164 planning of the attacks on Fort McAllister, 226, 227 use of the Stone Fleet by, 646 See also Charleston, South Carolina, Du Pont’s attack on; Port Royal Sound, Battle of Dunbar, 513, 514 Duncan, Johnson Kelly, 218, 479 Dunderberg, 160–162, 349 armament of, 161 specifications of, 161, 321 transfer of to the French navy, 162 Dunnington, John W., 215 Dunn’s Bayou, engagement at, 162–163 Dutch Gap, Battle of, 165–167 Eads, James Buchanan, xxvii, 52, 61, 169–171, 169 (image), 349, 404, 467, 593 construction of river ironclads by, 93–94 Eagle, 47, 326 Eagle, Henry, 171–172 Early, Jubal A., 355 East Gulf Blockading Squadron, 36, 41, 46, 67, 172–173, 232, 271, 272, 343, 382, 464, 551, 615, 673, 675, 753 Eastport, 173–174, 441, 512, 514, 515, 573, 574, 578 groundings and final destruction of during the Red River Campaign, 576–577, 580–581 Ed Howard, 97 Edith. See Chickamauga El Majidi, 629 Elgar, John, 311 Ella and Annie, 68 Elizabeth City, North Carolina, 359, 360, 440, 484, 600, 604 Elizabeth City, North Carolina, Battle of, 130, 174–175, 264, 497

Indexâ•‡ | I-7 Elizabeth River, 151, 171, 277, 283, 284, 329, 428, 480, 481 Ellet, Alfred Washington, 33, 175–176, 177, 390, 398–399, 554, 560, 561, 723, 729 Ellet, Charles, Jr., xxvii, 176–178, 234, 388, 389, 554, 594 death of, 390 See also Ram Fleet, U.S. Elliot, Gilbert, 16 Ellis, 130, 136, 174 Enchantress Affair, the, 178–179 Engle, Frederick, 179–180 Enoch Train, 368 Enrica, 7 Enterprise, 620 Eolus, 73 (image) Epervier, 690 Era, 267 Era No. 5, 555, 729 Ericsson, John, 85, 107, 148, 154, 180–182, 181 (image), 313–314, 319, 337, 428, 507, 597, 616, 654 design of the Monitor, 181 design of the Princeton, 180, 617 Erie, 133, 163 Essex, 31, 33–34, 56, 182, 183, 211, 212, 321, 529, 531, 574, 729 Etna, 719 Eutaw, 709 Evans, William E., 257 Experiment, 661 Fairfield, 344 Falkland, 538 Falmouth, 134, 336 Fanny, 174, 289, 439 Farragut, David Glasgow, xxvii, xxviii, 23, 26, 32, 33, 49, 58, 81, 83, 108, 134, 158, 183–184, 183 (image), 230, 266, 271, 287, 301, 332, 346, 369, 447, 494, 509, 526, 528, 566, 595, 606, 655–656 actions at the Battle of Mobile Bay, 184, 412, 414, 415, 417, 418–22, 423, 424, 425–426 and the capture of New Orleans, 133, 184, 396, 753 as the first vice-admiral and full admiral in the U.S. Navy, 562 relationship with David D. Porter, 183, 524 run past Vicksburg, 723–724, 725–727

I-8 |â•‡ Index Farragut, David Glasgow (continued) See also Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s run past; Vicksburg Campaign Farrand, Ebenezer, 185–186, 445 Fauntleroy, Charles Magill, 187–188 Faxon, William, 752 Ferret, 57 Field, Charles, 166 Fingal, 39, 87, 188, 614, 646 Finn, Tim, 632 Firefly, 614 Fitch, Graham N., 233, 754, 755 Fitch, John, 653 Fitch, Le Roy, 189 Flag, 602 Floating batteries, 189–190 Florida, xxvi, xxix, 54, 85, 87, 88, 121, 126, 126 (image), 190–192, 261, 263, 295, 363–364, 459, 460, 464, 544, 565, 664, 669, 687 armament of, 190–191 number of Union merchant ships captured by, 127, 363 Florida 2. See Tacony Flotillas, 192 Floyd, John B., 202, 204 Flusser, Charles W., 21 Food/drink/rations, aboard ship, 192–194 alcoholic beverages, 193–194 canned meat, 193 congressionally approved daily ration for the navy, 193 Foote, Andrew H., xxvii, 26, 60, 111, 129, 140, 170, 195–197, 195 (image), 210, 218, 233, 242, 301, 391, 405, 437, 441, 453, 463, 512, 518, 519, 525, 593, 696 actions against Fort Donelson, 196, 202, 203, 594 death of, 647 service of in China, 195–196 support for temperance in the navy, 194 See also Island Number 10, Battle of Foreign Enlistment Act (1819), 87, 126 Forest Rose, 193, 197–198, 573, 767 Forrest, 174, 439, 600 Forrest, French, 198–199, 290 Forrest, Nathan Bedford, 115, 189, 204, 727 Fort Adams, 43

Fort Anderson and Wilmington, North Carolina, Union operations against, 199–201 Fort Barrancas, 231, 240 Fort Bartow, 359, 599, 600 Fort Beauregard, 534, 536, 537 Fort Brady, 587, 710 Fort Campbell, 201 Fort Clark, 53, 54, 289, 290 Fort DeRussy, 512, 573, 574, 732 Fort Donelson, xxvii, 26, 61, 62, 95, 96, 116, 170, 196, 210, 212, 214, 232, 233, 593, 674, 715, 742 See also Fort Donelson, Battle of Fort Donelson, Battle of, 129, 136, 202–205, 203 (image), 358, 405, 517, 594 casualties of, 204 Confederate counterattack, 203–204 Union strategy during, 202–203 Fort Donelson, 71 (image) Fort Fisher, 26, 114, 199, 619, 709, 759, 760 Fort Fisher Campaign, 205–208, 206 (map), 373, 449, 526 casualties of, 208 Fort Forrest, 599 Fort Gaines, 412, 415, 418, 419, 425 Fort Gibson, 607–608 Fort Griffin, 609, 610 Fort Harrison and Chaffin’s Bluff, Battle of, 208–210 Fort Hatteras, 54, 289, 290 Fort Heiman, 210, 212 Fort Henry, xxvii, 60, 62, 95, 96, 116, 232, 233, 350, 674, 703, 715, 742 See also Fort Henry, Battle of Fort Henry, Battle of, 210–212, 211 (image), 213 (map), 214, 405, 593–594, 696 Fort Hindman, 573, 574, 577, 578, 581, 582, 583 Fort Hindman, 26, 44, 52, 62, 116, 351, 358, 634, 715, 728 See also Fort Hindman, Battle of Fort Hindman, Battle of, 35, 214–216 Fort Huger, 599 Fort Jackson, 26, 238, 240, 479, 526 Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s run past, 216–226, 217 (image), 356, 369, 396, 409–410, 434, 477, 595 casualties of, 221, 225

Confederate fleet, 218–219 Farragut’s actions against Confederate obstructions placed in the river, 219–220 Farragut’s fleet, 217 formation of Farragut’s squadron, 220–221 Union army troops supporting Farragut, 217 Fort Johnson, 105, 236, 243 Fort Lee, 201 Fort Macon, 36, 264, 604 Fort McAllister, 25, 106–107, 158, 431, 613 Union attacks on, 226–228 Fort McRee, 231, 232, 271, 382 Fort Mears, 201 Fort Monroe, 228–229, 284, 480, 522, 551, 743 Fort Morgan, 229–230, 230 (image), 240, 412 involvement of in the Battle of Mobile Bay, 415, 418, 419–420, 422, 423–424, 425 Fort Moultrie, 105, 106, 107, 109, 110, 238, 243, 435 Fort Pemberton, 52, 656, 730, 767, 768 Fort Pickens, xxv, 5, 23, 35, 231–232, 366, 525, 743 See also Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, relief efforts of Fort Pillow, xxvii, 170, 177, 232–234, 325, 326, 339, 559–560 reinforced defenses of, 233 Fort Powell, 415, 417, 420, 425 Fort Pulaski, 613, 614 Fort St. Philip, 23, 26, 46, 58, 81, 240, 315, 356–357, 410, 434, 477, 526, 595, 758 See also Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Â�Farragut’s run past Fort Severn, 50 Fort Stephenson, 717 Fort Sumter, xxv, 25, 101, 158, 234–237, 235 (image), 239 (map), 245, 338, 435, 743 Confederate occupation of, 236 construction of, 234–236 Union attacks on, 237–238, 239 (map), 647 vulnerability of, 240 See also Charleston, South Carolina, Du Pont’s attack on; Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, relief efforts of Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, relief efforts of, 240–244, 245 Fort Thompson, 469, 470

Indexâ•‡ | I-9 Fort Wagner, xxix, 101, 105, 237, 432, 434, 435, 436 Fort Walker, 158, 534, 536–537 Fort Warren, 54, 89, 244, 259, 332, 377, 410, 640, 708, 749, 758 Foster, John G., 448, 470, 665, 666 Fountleroy, Charles M., 565 Fox, Gustavus Vasa, xxix, 41, 43, 64, 65, 104, 164, 170, 200, 241, 245–247, 245 (image), 320, 353, 391, 525, 646, 662, 711, 723, 752 hardworking and gregarious nature of, 246 as proponent of an attack on New Orleans, 216 proposal of to relieve Fort Sumter, 245 France, 8, 11, 88, 151, 162, 257, 312, 313, 317, 321, 349, 462, 564–565, 606, 640, 660, 668, 701 See also Cherbourg, France Franklin, 45, 163 Franklin, William B., 577, 578, 580, 609, 610 Fred Kopp, 24 Fredericksburg, 166, 209, 259, 317, 330, 528, 587, 709, 710 Fredericksburg, First Battle of, 47 Freeman, Martin, 422 Frémont, John C., 59, 61, 196, 404, 405, 437, 593, 602 Frolic, 294 Fry, Joseph, 755 Fugitive Slave Law (1850), 377, 705 Fulton, 457, 654, 767 Fulton II, 654 Fulton, Robert, 189–190, 311, 653, 654 development of torpedoes by, 701 Gaines, 417, 423, 692 (image) Gaines’ Mill, Battle of, 29 Galena, 158, 159–160, 181, 185, 249–250, 249 (image), 264, 313, 319, 383, 417, 419, 602, 625, 643 Galveston, Battle of, 12, 250–253, 753 Confederate counterattack, 251 initial Union blockade of Galveston, 250 Union capture of Galveston, 255–256 Union surrender, 253 Galveston, Texas, 253–255 See also Galveston, Battle of

I-10 |â•‡ Index Gardner, Franklin, 531, 532 Gazelle, 573 General Bragg, 268, 402, 519, 520 General Beauregard, 132, 390, 401, 402, 519 General Breckinridge, 218, 402 General Lovell, 218, 402 General Pillow, 699 General Polk, 97 General Price, 129, 265, 440, 619, 722 General Quitman, 218 General Sherman, 602 General Sterling Price, 390, 402, 519, 520 General Sumter, 402, 519, 520 General Thompson, 402, 519 General Van Dorn, 402, 519, 520, 521 Genessee, 531 George G. Baker, 262 George M. Smith, 508 George Page, 330, 639 George Peabody, 289 Georgia (commerce raider), 13, 54, 87, 126, 133, 190, 256–257, 335, 564, 565, 614 Georgia (ironclad floating battery), 258, 315–316, 545 Georgian, 394 Geranium, 666 Germantown, 433, 739 Gettysburg, xxviii Gibraltar, 684 Gibson, Randall L., 412 Gillmore, Quincy A., 101, 237, 435, 436 Gilmer, Thomas, 506 Giraffe, 758 Glassell, William T., 146, 258–260, 474, 649 Glendy, William Marshall, 260–261 Glide, 215 Gloire, 190, 311, 319, 472, 660 Godon, Sylvanus William, 261–262 Golden Rocket, 126, 683 Golden Rule, 544 Goldsborough, John Rodgers, 262–263 Goldsborough, Louis Malesherbes, 41, 158, 263–265, 306, 346, 409, 481, 484–485, 604, 625 actions during the capture of Roanoke Island, 598–600 Gordon Coleman and Company, 564 Gosport Navy Yard. See Norfolk Navy Yard

Governor, 591 Governor Moore, 218, 224, 225 Grafton, E. C., 419 Grampus, 58, 690 Grand Duke, 286 Grand Era, 406, 555, 747 Grand Gulf, Battle of, 265–266 Union shelling of Grand Gulf, 266–267 Granger, Gordon, 230, 412, 417, 419 Granite City, 609 Grant, Ulysses S., xxvii, xxviii, xxx, 26, 59, 62, 95, 105, 118, 196, 200, 205, 207, 214, 218, 274, 325, 353, 399, 405, 412, 463, 526, 557, 583, 593–594, 595, 657, 755, 760, 767 actions of at the Battle of Chickasaw Bluffs, 114–115 actions of at Pittsburg Landing, 517–518 desire of to capture Mobile, Alabama, 569 Overland Campaign of, 417–418 plans to attack Vicksburg from the south, 721–722 See also Fort Donelson, Battle of; Fort Henry, Battle of; Hayne’s Bluff, Mississippi, Union demonstration at; Red River Campaign; Trent’s Reach, Battle of; Vicksburg Campaign Grape shot. See Artillery projectiles, naval Great Britain, 617 Great Britain, xxvi, xxviii, 10, 11, 72, 151, 312, 313, 459, 488, 564, 606, 668, 701 banning of privateers from British ports, 547 See also Trent Affair, the Green, Thomas, 579 Greene, Samuel D., 765 Greene, Theodore P., 172 Greenville, Mississippi, Union operations in the vicinity of, 267–268 Gregory, Francis Hoyt, 268–269 Gregory, Thomas B., 519 Greyhound, 119 Grimes, James W., 312 Guerre de course, 269–270, 365 Guest, John, 479 Gulf Coast Blockading Squadron, 65, 67, 270–271, 381–382, 393, 522, 763 Gulf of Mexico, 272–273 See also Gulf Coast Blockading Squadron

Gunboats, Confederate. See Cottonclads Gunner’s tools, 273–274 Gwin, William, 274–275, 274 (image), 513, 518 Habana, 683 Hagood, Johnson, 760, 761 Halleck, Henry W., 47, 210, 233, 325, 388, 405, 517, 519, 569, 572–573, 593, 754, 755 refusal to support Farragut in his run past Vicksburg, 724, 726 Halligan, John, 680 Hampton, 166, 709, 710 Hampton Roads, Virginia, 283–284, 709 Hampton Roads, Virginia, Battle of, 277–279, 278 (image), 280 (map), 281–283, 395, 463–464, 480, 559 Handy, Robert, 294 Harriet Lane, 51, 242, 245, 250, 251, 252, 255, 285–286, 289, 290, 406, 479, 505, 585, 723 armament of, 285 Harris, John, 372 Harrison, Nathaniel, 178–179 Hart, John Elliott, 286–287 Hartford, 58, 86, 135, 217, 220, 222–223, 259, 263, 287–288, 332, 415, 417, 419, 420, 421–422, 423, 424, 425, 531, 692 (image), 695, 723, Harwood, Andrew Allen, 288 Hassler, Ferdinand Rudolph, 119–120 Hatch, John P., 448, 666 Hatteras, 337, 459, 623 See also Hatteras vs. Alabama Hatteras vs. Alabama, 11–12, 127 Hatteras Inlet, xxvi, 25, 26, 53 Union assault on, 289–291 Haya Maru, 689 Hayne’s Bluff, Mississippi, Union demonstration at, 291–292 Head of Passes, Battle of, 292–294, 368–369 Heiman, Adolphus, 210, 211 Helene, 262 Henry, Joseph, 510 Henry Clay, 722 Henry James, 250, 255, 607 Herald, 132, 550 Hitchcock, Robert Bradley, 295

Indexâ•‡ | I-11 H. L. Hunley, xxix, 85, 101, 146, 296–298, 297 (image), 304, 411, 459, 647, 651, 679, 680 Hoel, William R., 520 Hoff, Henry Kuhn, 298–299 Hoge, Francis Lyell, 299–300 Hoke, Robert F., 17, 21, 207, 468, 471, 472, 760, 761 Hollins, George Nichols, 293, 300–301, 325, 326, 368 Holly Springs, Mississippi, 114, 115 Home Squadron, 67 Hornet, 198, 635, 650, 709, 710 Horwitz, Phineas Jonathan, 302 Hospital ships. See Medicine, naval, hospital ships Housatonic, xxix, 101, 103, 106, 146, 298, 302–304, 303 (image), 459, 646, 651, 713 armament of, 303 sinking of, 304, 647, 680 specifications of, 303 Hudson,157 Huger, Thomas B., 221–222, 224 Hull, F. S., 126 Hull, Joseph Bartine, 305–306, 481 Hume, W. Y. C., 327 Hunchback, 166, 709, 711 Hunley, Horace L., 296, 297, 679 Hunt, Timothy Atwater, 306–307 Hunter, David, 104 Hunter, M. T., 284 Hunter, Robert, 131 Hunter, Thomas T., 290 Huntsville, 185, 317, 415, 417 Huron, 619 Hussar, 309 Illinois, 522 Independence, 133, 344, 635, 690 Indianola, 554–555, 729, 747 See also Indianola vs. Queen of the West Indianola vs. Queen of the West, 554–556 Ingraham, Duncan Nathaniel, 102, 309–310, 458 Intelligent Whale, 681 Iron and steel manufacturing, impact on ship construction, 310–312 Ironclad Board, 312–314, 642–643 “Report on Ironclad Vessels,” 313

I-12 |â•‡ Index Ironclads, xxvi–xxvii, 107 Cairo-class river ironclads, 93–94, 321–322 Canonicus-class, 320 Casco-class, 320–321 Cumberland-class, 316 Huntsville-class, 317 Milwaukee-class, 322 Richmond-class, 316 See also Ironclad Board; Ironclads, Confederate; Ironclads, Union; “Pook Turtles” Ironclads, Confederate, 314–319 appropriations for, 314 problems obtaining iron for, 315 the “Scottish Sea Monster,” 317 See also Laird Rams Ironclads, Union, 319–323 appropriations for, 319, 320 design blunders of the Casco-class monitors, 320–321 Ericsson monitors, 320 and “monitor-mania,” 320, 430 Iroquois, 217, 220, 224, 286, 357, 495, 723, 759 Isaac N. Seymour, 21 Isaac Smith, 536 Isherwood, Benjamin Franklin, 323–324, 482 Island Number 10, xxvii, 26, 61, 96, 170, 196, 233, 386 Island Number 10, Battle of, 324–328 abandonment of New Madrid, 325 bombardment of Island Number 10 by mortar boats, 437 (image) building of the Union canal from Island Number 8 to New Madrid, 326–327 casualties of, 325, 327 Confederate fortifications at Island Number 10, 325 consequences to the South due to the loss of, 327 Island Queen, 394 Isondiga, 614, 747 Itasca, 217, 219–220, 224, 417, 419 Ivy, 293, 722 Jackall, 690 Jackson, 128, 219, 293, 409, 723, 758 Jackson, Andrew, 750 Jacob Bell, 126 (image)

Jacobi, Moritz-Hermann, 701, 702 James Island, 436 James River, xxvii, 24, 171, 184, 185, 329–330, 446, 540, 589, 590, 645 mining of, 677, 678 See also Drewry’s Bluff, First Battle of; Dutch Gap, Battle of; Fort Harrison and Chaffin’s Bluff, Battle of; James River, Battle of the; James River Squadron; Trent’s Reach, Battle of James River, Battle of the, 89, 410 James River Squadron, 159, 165, 199, 259, 277, 330–331, 371, 410, 446, 484, 590, 623, 625, 638, 691, 757 Jamestown, 44, 51, 159, 185, 286, 330, 625, 691, 712, 744 Jansen, Marin H., 256 Japan, 256 Jefferson, Thomas, 745–746 Jefferson Davis, 131–132, 178 John Adams, 4, 22, 53, 286, 739 John F. Carr, 251 John Y. Mason, 23 John Laird and Sons, 4, 88, 317–318 Johnson, Andrew, 246, 752 Johnson, Jeffries, 704 Johnston, Albert Sidney, 60, 202, 325, 518 Johnston, James D., 331–332, 420, 425 Johnston, Joseph E., xxx, 89, 732 Johnston, Oscar F., 638 Jones, Andrew, 627 Jones, Catesby ap Roger, 78, 159, 185, 279, 333–334, 621 Joseph, 547 Joseph H. Toone, 293, 294, 524 Joseph Lane, 545 Jouffroy d’Abbans, Claude de, 653 Juliet, 573, 581–582 Julius Smith, 514 Katahdin, 217, 220, 266, 544, 723 Kate Bruce, 614 Kearsarge, 10, 153, 335–336, 337, 459, 683 armament of, 14 See also Kearsarge vs. Alabama Kearsarge vs. Alabama, 13–14, 13 (image), 15 (map), 16, 127, 374, 387, 623, 762–763

Kell, John McIntosh, 12, 336–337, 710 Kennebec, 217, 220, 417, 723 Kennington, John, 489 Kennon, Beverly, 224–225 Kensington, 607 Kenyon, Charles, 383 Keokuk, 108, 109–110, 321, 337–339 Key West, Florida, 270 Keystone State, 102, 646, 712 Kickapoo, 170, 322 Kilty, Augustus H., 339–340, 440, 520, 754, 755 Kineo, 217, 220, 223, 266, 477, 531, 729 collision with the Brooklyn, 223 Kinney, John, 421 Kroehl, Julius, 680 Lackawanna, 417, 419, 424 Lady Davis, 614 Lady Stirling, 73 (image) Lafayette, 265, 573, 722, 742 Laird Rams, xxviii, 4, 88, 317–318, 341, 739 Lamb, William, 205, 208 Lancaster, 298, 342, 559, 561 Lancaster, John, 14 Langthorne, Amos R., 267 Lapsley, John W., 627 Lardner, James Lawrence, 172, 343–344 Latrobe, Benjamin, 746 Laurel, 628, 740 Laurel Hill, 266 Lavallette, Elie Augustus Frederick, 344–345, 432, 610, 635 Law, Richard L., 253 Lawrence, 391 Lawson, John, 6 Lee, Albert, 575, 577, 578–579 Lee, Francis D., 648–649 Lee, Robert E., xxviii, xxx, 79, 185, 209, 331, 353, 412, 471, 493, 537, 638, 663, 682 See also Army of Northern Virginia Lee, Samuel Phillips, 18, 19, 62, 113, 134, 137, 345–347, 405, 485, 651, 688, 714 Lee, Sidney Smith, 347–348, 493 Lehigh, 238, 502, 666 Lenapee, 200 Lenthall, John, 160, 348–349 LeRoy, William E., 425

Indexâ•‡ | I-13 Letters of marque and reprisal, 349–350, 546 Levant, 635, 661 Lexington, 44, 59, 129, 169, 211, 215, 274, 350–351, 404, 467, 512, 513, 514, 515, 518, 593, 594, 635, 658, 696, 698, 741, 753, 755 reinforcement of with heavy guns and oak plating, 714–715 service of in the Red River Campaign, 573, 577, 578, 580, 583 Lightning, 637 Lilian, 689 Lincoln, Abraham, xxv, xxvii, 3, 28, 50, 104, 151, 178, 184, 210, 216, 231, 240, 245, 284, 350, 351–353, 377, 391, 393, 405, 425, 466, 508, 526, 548, 569, 584, 606, 640, 662, 682, 708, 723, 751, 765 actions of to implement the Peninsula Campaign, 624–625 assassination of, 353, 746 belief in taking Vicksburg as the key to Confederate defeat in the West, 724–725 comment of on General Banks’s overconfidence, 578 decision to reinforce Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, 241–242 foreign policy of, 352 limited involvement of in Civil War naval decisions, 352–353, 461–462 political career of, 351–352 proclamation of a blockade of the Confederacy, 66–67 response of to privateers, 546 Lincoln, Mary Todd, 56, 606, 746 Linden, 291 Lioness, 91, 92, 389 (image), 559, 561 Lisovskii, Nikolai Mikhailovich, 605 Little Rebel, 390, 402, 519 Livingston, John William, 354 Lockwood, Henry Hayes, 99, 355–356, 466 Logan, 330 Lord, George, 162 Loring, William W., 768 Loudon, Robert, 119 Louisiana, 190, 219, 315, 356–357, 397, 409, 410, 453, 479, 758 armament of, 356 specifications of, 356

I-14 |â•‡ Index Louisville, 94, 170, 203, 215, 265, 357–358, 388, 437 (image), 574, 577, 656, 722 specifications of, 357 Lovell, Mansfield, 218, 219, 397, 477, 748 Lowe, Thaddeus S. C., 47 Loyall, Benjamin Pollard, 358–359, 468, 717 Lucy Gwin, 251 Luraghi, Raimondo, 487 Lynch, Montgomery, 233 Lynch, William Francis, 174, 359–361, 439, 599–600, 627, 639 Lynn Boyd, 513 Lyoness, 767 Macdonough, Thomas, 344 Macedonian, 57, 690 Mackall, William W., 327 Mackie, John B., 160, 250 Mackinaw, 166 Macon, 614 Madison, James, 3 Maffitt, John N., 127, 190–191, 363–364, 458, 544, 566, 687 Magruder, George A., 288, 751 Magruder, John B., 251–252, 254, 609 Mahan, Alfred Thayer, 270, 364–366 influential publications of, 365 Mahopac, 207, 745 (image) Maine, 153 Malek Adbel, 306 Mallory, Stephen R., xxvi, 53, 54, 79, 87, 89, 113, 151, 198, 257, 301, 309, 366–368, 394, 410, 457, 488, 528, 622, 683, 688, 689, 739, 748 breaking the North’s blockade as his primary goal, 668–669 critics of, 453 goals of for the Confederate navy, 458–459 lack of confidence in privateers, 546 legal career of, 366 problems faced by as secretary of the navy, 668 relationship with Jefferson Davis, 367 support of the Confederate ironclad program, 314–315, 317, 460 support of commerce raiding, 125–126, 367 support of the Submarine Battery Service, 678 See also Confederacy, naval strategy of; Naval Academy, Confederate

Malvern, 200 Manassas, xxviii, 219, 222, 223–224, 225, 271, 293, 301, 368–369, 409, 524, 548 specifications of, 368 Manhattan, 417, 419, 420, 424, 692 (image), 693 Manitou, 619 Marblehead, 745 (image) Marchand, John B., 424 Mare Island Navy Yard, 369–370 Margaret, 301 Maria J. Carlton, 219 Marianna Flora, 63 Marine Corps, CSA, 370–372, 458 company and corps strength of, 370 organization of, 370 problems of, 371 Marine Corps, U.S., 372–374 leadership problems of, 372–373 role of in the capture of New Orleans, 373–374 Marion, 286 Marmora, 91, 767 Marston, John, 374–376 Mary Pierce, 301 Mary T., 286 Mason, J. C., 681 Mason, James Murray, 244, 376–378, 640, 683, 707–708, 757 legal career of, 376 mission of to London, 377–378 as a senator, 376–377 Mason, John Y., 636 Massachusetts, 633 Massassoit, 709, 711 Mattabesett, 21, 22 Maurepas, 754 Maury, Dabney H., 412 Maury, John S., 638 Maury, Matthew Fontaine, 160, 378–380, 379 (image), 564–565, 678, 702 effect of his leg injury on his naval career, 378 pioneering research of in oceanography, 378–379 Maury, William Lewis, 256, 257 Maxwell, John S., 118 McCauley, Charles Stewart, 380–381, 482, 504

McClellan, George, xxvii, xxviii, 29, 47, 216, 228, 404–405, 409, 480, 483, 539, 595 See also Peninsula Campaign McClernand, John A., 59, 202, 212, 214–215, 728 vain personality of, 215, 216 McClintock, James R., 296, 679 McCown, John P., 325, 326, 327 McIntosh, C. F., 357 McKean, William Wister, 172, 271, 293, 381–382, 393 McRae, 218–219, 221–222, 224, 293, 409 McRae, Colin, 620 Medal of Honor, 382–383 design of, 382 naval winners of, 383 Medicine, naval, 383–388, 384 (image) amputations, 385 contributing factors to infection, 385 hospital ships, 385–386 lower rates of infection among Confederate wounded, 385 number of operations performed under anesthesia, 384 role of blockade-runners in supplying medicinal drugs, 387 surgical sanitation, 384–385 use of and procurement of drugs for naval surgeons, 383–384 use of ships for the transport of the wounded, 385 women serving as naval nurses, 386–387 Meigs, Montgomery, 61, 241, 391 Memphis, 102, 103 Memphis, First Battle of, 148, 177–178, 388–391, 389 (image), 402, 405, 594–595 Memphis, Tennessee, xxvii Mercedita, 102, 303, 646 Mercer, Samuel, 391–392 Mercury, 537 Merrick and Sons, 313, 319, 472 Merrimack, xxvi, 76, 85, 181, 198, 277, 311, 312, 314, 323, 333, 349, 460, 483, 504, 508, 528, 626, 643, 670, 673 reconstruction of, 734–735 scuttling of, 380–381, 482 See also Virginia Merrimack No. 2, 586

Indexâ•‡ | I-15 Merritt, A. Thomas, 93 Mervine, William, 270, 271, 392–393 Metacomet, 417, 419, 422, 423 Mexican-American War (1846–1848), 23, 25, 398 Miami, 21, 709 Miantonomoh, 246 Michigan, 286, 311, 342, 359, 393–395, 759 armament of, 394 specifications of, 393 Milledgeville, 316, 528, 614 Milliken’s Bend, Battle of, 351 Milwaukee, 170, 322 Mines, 160, 296 Mingo, 389 (image), 559, 561 Minnesota, 23, 136, 267, 277, 281, 289, 290, 341, 375, 395–396, 631, 719 armament of, 395 attack on by the Squib, 147, 650–651 specifications of, 395 Minor, Robert D., 359 Mississippi, CSS, 396–397, 453 Mississippi, USS, 54, 68, 153, 217, 220, 222, 225, 311, 315, 336, 341, 357, 397–398, 477, 479, 531, 532, 643, 654, 729 armament of, 398 specifications of, 397–398 Mississippi Central Railroad, 114, 727 Mississippi Flotilla, 388, 526 Mississippi Marine Brigade (MMB), 175, 398–400, 560, 573, 595 Mississippi River, xxv, xxvii, 26, 28–29, 32–33, 56, 95, 169, 272, 325, 399, 400–401 See also Mississippi Flotilla; Mississippi River Defense Fleet (Confederate River Defense Fleet); Mississippi Squadron; Vicksburg Campaign Mississippi River Defense Fleet (Confederate River Defense Fleet), 130, 218, 401–402, 560, 594 defeat of at Memphis, 725 Mississippi Sound, 403 Mississippi Squadron, xxviii, 96, 128, 346, 349, 350, 386, 399, 404–406, 417, 441, 512, 593, 595, 619, 652, 656, 658, 673, 698, 714–715 passage of Vicksburg, Mississippi by, 721–723

I-16 |â•‡ Index Missouri, 98, 317, 406–407, 528, 569, 6545 armament of, 406 specifications of, 406 Missouri River, 407–408 Missroon, John Stoney, 408–409 Mist, 633 Mitchell, J. J., 356 Mitchell, John Kirkwood, 166, 209, 218, 219, 221, 330, 409–410, 453, 587, 638 actions at the Battle of Trent’s Reach, 709–711 Mobile, 732–733 Mobile, Alabama, 65, 272, 411 siege of, xxix, 411–413 Mobile Bay, 413–414 See also Mobile Bay, Battle of Mobile Bay, Battle of, 49, 86, 135, 158, 186, 374, 387, 414–415, 416 (map), 417–427, 692–693, 692 (image), 753 casualties of, 426 Confederate defenses, 415 Confederate ironclads available for defense, 415, 417 details of the naval battle, 420–425 final Union plan for attack (General Order No. 11), 418 initial Union planning for, 414–415, 417 legacy/importance of the Union victory at, 425 Union concern over Confederate torpedoes, 418–419, 422 Union warships involved in, 417 See also Fort Morgan, involvement of in the Battle of Mobile Bay Mohawk, 134 Mohican, 261, 536, 720 Monadnock, 207 Monarch, 177, 215, 389, 390, 559, 560, 561 Monitor, xxvii, 38, 85, 148, 158, 159, 181, 199, 246, 264, 278 (image), 284, 311, 313, 330, 333, 371, 375, 395, 427–430, 428 (image), 483, 502, 507, 617, 625, 643, 691, 719 armament of, 281, 427, 473 battle of with the Virginia, 281–283, 428–429, 463–464, 480, 736, 765 specifications and construction of, 319–320, 427–428

“Monitor-mania,” 320, 430 Monitor-type ships, xxvii–xxviii Milwaukee-class, 170 Passaic-class, 320, 431, 502–503 Monongahela, 417, 419, 424, 531, 729 Mont Blanc, 121 Montauk, 106, 200, 226–227, 238, 431–432, 435, 436, 502, 666, 765 armament of, 431 specifications of, 431 Montgomery, 689 Montgomery, James E., 388, 402, 519, 521 Montgomery, John Berrien, 432–433 Monticello, 136, 137, 171, 289, 301 Moodna, 338 Morgan, 186, 417, 444, 692 (image) Morgan, Daniel, 229 Morgan, John Hunt, 189 Morris, Charles M., 51, 544 Morris, Henry W., 221, 433–434 Morris Island, South Carolina, 101, 105, 108, 109 Union operations against, 434–437 Morse, Freeman H., 564 Morse, Samuel, 122–123 Mortar Boat No. 16, 437, 439, 519 Mortar boats, 437–438, 437 (image) armament of, 438 specifications of, 437–438 Mortars, 438–439 Moser, 222 Mosquito Fleet, the, 57, 264, 439–440 Mound City, 94, 170, 265, 339, 402, 437 (image), 440–441, 520, 570 (image), 574, 577, 583, 594, 656, 722 See also White River Expedition Mound City Naval Station, 441 Murray, E. C., 356 Muscle, 514, 515 Muscogee, 614 Music, 547 Nahant, 40, 106, 109, 110, 227, 238, 338, 431, 435, 502, 614, 647, 746, 747, 749 Nansemond, 89, 166, 209, 639, 710 Nantucket, 109, 110, 431, 502 Napoleon, 701 Nashville (cruiser), 106, 187, 227, 431, 443

Nashville (ironclad), xxviii, 186, 316, 415, 444–445, 528, 639 armament of, 444 specifications of, 444 Natchez, 33, 635 Naugatuck, 158, 159, 585, 625 Naval Academy, Confederate, 445–446 Naval Academy, U.S., 447–448 Naval brigade, 448–449 Naval Efficiency Board, 449–450 Naval gunnery, 451–452 Naval Investigating Board, 453–454 Naval ordnance, 454–457, 455 (image) difference between Confederate and Union guns, 456–457 rifled guns, 456 shell guns, 454, 455–456 shot guns, 454–455 See also Brooke guns; Dahlgren boat howitzers; Dahlgren naval guns; Parrot guns Navy, Confederate States of America (CSA), 457–461 bonuses paid for enlistment in, 618 budget for as percentage of total Confederate budget, 458, 668 lack of ships and facilities at the beginning of the Civil War, 457–458 numerical strength of, 458, 487 order of ranks in, 561–563 recruitment of seamen for, 617–619 See also Commerce raiding; Ironclads; Officers and seamen (Union and Confederate); Shipboard life; Submarines; Timberclads Navy, U.S., 461–465, 751–752 bonuses paid for enlistment in, 618 budget for as percentage of total U.S. budget, 458, 668 growth of ships and personnel in, 462 leadership of, 461–462 logistical achievements of, 464–465 naval support of army operations, 463 number of steam warships in, 655 numerical strength of, 462, 487 order of ranks in, 561–563 recruitment of seamen for, 617–619 strategic mission of, 462 technological innovations of, 462

Indexâ•‡ | I-17 See also African American sailors; Confederacy, blockade of; Officers and seamen (Union and Confederate); Shipboard life; Submarines; Tinclads Neilson, James, 310 Nelson, William, 465–466 Neosho, 170, 467, 573, 570 (image), 575 (image), 577, 578, 582, 583 Neptune, 131, 251, 303 Neuse, 16, 317, 359, 468–469, 528, 545, 626 Neuse River, 27, 299, 359, 468, 469–470, 471, 717 New Bern, North Carolina, capture of, 469–471 New Bern, North Carolina, raid on, 27, 471–472 New Era. See Essex New Hampshire, 567 New Ironsides, 101, 103, 106, 107, 109, 110, 146, 165, 207, 238, 246, 259, 311, 313, 319, 472–474, 473 (image), 557, 604, 643, 646, 647, 649, 673, 711, 714 armament of, 473 attack on by the David, 474–475 specifications of, 472 New Madrid, Missouri, xxvii New Orleans, 610 New Orleans, Louisiana, xxvii, 34, 56, 65, 69, 72, 81, 124, 190, 271, 272, 367, 397, 410, 438, 476–477, 576, 607, 633, 680, 749 privateers operating from, 81, 547–548 See also New Orleans, Louisiana, capture of New Orleans, Louisiana, capture of, 23, 58, 133, 411, 437, 477, 478 (map), 479, 530, 588, 652, 725, 753, 758 See also Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s run past Newport News, Virginia, 480–481 Niagara, 67–68, 133, 257, 381 Nicholson, William Carmichael, 481 Nightingale, 293, 523 Niles, John M., 750 Norfolk Navy Yard, 151, 277, 288, 290, 305, 314, 323, 375, 459, 460, 481–484, 483 (image), 528, 585, 589, 691 destruction of, 373, 380–381, 482, 483 (image), 602, 757 North, James H., 87, 125, 317

I-18 |â•‡ Index North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, 26, 40, 41, 67, 76, 137, 153, 155, 250, 264, 274, 346, 395, 408, 484–486, 516, 526, 528, 539, 551, 557–558, 597, 598, 615, 650, 677, 688, 692, 697, 709, 714, 746 North Carolina, 54, 163, 259, 305, 316, 341, 567, 587 North River, 637 Northampton, 330 Ocean Eagle, 547 Octorara, 120, 417, 419, 680, 723 Oeonee, 614 Officers and seamen (Union and Confederate), 487–489 deaths of from disease, 488 motivations of for joining the navy, 488 social class differences between sailors and army personnel, 487–488 See also African American sailors Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies (Office of Naval War Records), 489–490 Ohio, 99, 133, 567, 676 Ohio River, 490–491 Olinde, 664 Olmstead, Frederick Law, 387 Olustee, 113, 688–689 Omaha, 620 Oneida, 217, 220, 222, 346, 417, 419, 723 Onondaga, 587, 709, 711 Oreto, 363 Osage, 322, 467–468, 573, 574, 577, 578, 580, 583 Osbon, Bradley, 223 Ossippi, 417, 419, 425 Otero. See Florida Ottawa, 505, 536, 537 Ouachita, 573 Overland Campaign, 418 Owasco, 250, 251, 252–253, 255, 723 Owl, 364 Ozark, 170, 322, 573, 577 Page, Richard Lucian, 230, 415, 425, 493–494 Page, Thomas J., 664 Palmer, Innis N., 471 Palmer, James Shedden, 494–496, 753

Palmetto State, 102, 106, 259, 303, 309, 316, 498, 528, 587, 646, 665, 712, 713 Para, 666 Parke, John, 470 Parker, Foxhall Alexander, Jr., 496–497 Parker, William A., actions at the Battle of Trent’s Reach, 709–711 Parker, William Harwar, 446, 497–498 Parrot, Robert Parker, 456, 499–500, 499 (image) Parrot guns, 500–502, 501 (image) Passaic, 106, 110, 158, 227, 237, 238, 431, 436, 502 Patapsco, 106, 110, 227, 238, 431, 502, 503, 703 Patrick Henry, 147, 159, 277, 330, 331, 359, 446, 498, 590, 615, 626, 712 Paulding, Hiram, 312, 482, 503–505, 504 (image), 642 Pawnee, 139 (image), 158, 242, 245, 289, 382, 501 (image), 504, 505–506, 536, 539, 603, 666, 744 armament of, 505 specifications of, 505 Pawtuxet, 200 Peace, Joachim, 6 Peacemaker, explosion of, 506–507 Peacock, 198 Pearson, George Frederick, 507–508 Pegram, Robert, 443 Pemberton, John C., 114–115, 291, 732 defense of Vicksburg by, 727 surrender of Vicksburg to Grant, 733 Pembina, 505, 536 Penguin, 354, 536 Peninsula Campaign, xxvii, 27, 47, 228, 264, 277, 283, 387, 409, 429, 463, 480, 483, 539, 595, 624, 674, 677, 702 Pennock, Alexander M., 441 Pendergast, Austin, 645 Pendergast, Garrett Jesse, 508–509 Pennsylvania, 305, 482, 712, 739 Pensacola, 153, 217, 220, 221, 434, 457, 544 Pensacola, Florida, 272 Pensacola Navy Yard, 231, 240, 270, 271, 373, 509–510 Pequot, 200 Perkins, George H., 221, 477

Permanent Commission, 510 Perry, 195, 547 Perry, Matthew C., 336, 397, 450, 544, 684 Peterhoff crisis, 510–511 Petersburg Campaign, 480 Petrel, 178, 179, 291, 292, 550, 767 Phelps, John W., 633 Phelps, Seth Ledyard, 196, 512–513, 573, 580, 593 Phelp’s Raid, 513–515 Phenix, 546–547 Philadelphia, 142 (image), 598, 604, 661 Philadelphia Naval Asylum, 515–516 Philadelphia Naval Yard, 516–517 Philippi, 423 Phillips, Lodner D., 679 Philo Parsons, 394 Phoebe, 183 Pickering, Charles W., 297, 304 Pickett, George E., 166, 471, 472 Pierce, Franklin, 450, 751 Pillow, Gideon J., 59–60, 202, 203–204 Pinola, 217, 219, 220, 224, 723 Pioneer, 296, 548, 679 Pioneer II, 679 Pitt, William, 701 Pittsburg, 91, 94, 170, 203, 265, 327, 437 (image), 517, 520, 573, 577, 583, 656, 722 Pittsburg Landing, 517–519 Planter, 6, 641–642 Plum Point Bend, Battle of, xxviii, 148, 233– 234, 388, 405, 437, 519–521, 560, 561 casualties of, 521 sinking of the Cincinnati during, 520 Plymouth, Battle of. See Albemarle Sound, Battle of Pocahontas, 537, 599 Poinsett, 360 Poland, 605–606 Polk, James K., 366, 447, 640, 704, 751 Polk, Leonidas, 26, 50, 59, 60, 211, 233, 325 Pontchartrain, 754 Pook, Samuel R., 51, 93, 170, 312, 319, 321, 349, 358 “Pook Turtles,” 92 (image), 94, 321–322, 358 construction specifications and armament of, 94 Poor, Charles Henry, 522–523

Indexâ•‡ | I-19 Pope, John, Jr., 96, 196, 233, 325, 523–524, 594 “Pope’s Run,” 271, 294, 301, 524 See also Head of Passes, Battle of Popov, Alexandrovich, 605 Porpoise, 133, 163, 263 Port Gibson, 732 Port Hudson, Louisiana, action at, 530–532, 656, 729 Port Hudson, Louisiana, siege of, 532–534 casualties of, 533 Port Royal, 158, 159, 417, 419 Port Royal, South Carolina, xxvi, 24, 26, 104, 164, 373, 646, 664, 691 Port Royal Sound, Battle of, 343, 534–538, 535 (map) Porter, David Dixon, xxviii, xxx, 19, 26, 44, 62, 64, 78, 95, 114, 115, 129, 137, 162, 176, 200, 201, 212, 241, 285, 291, 346, 353, 356, 386, 391, 405, 447, 463, 486, 524–527, 525 (image), 543, 554, 560, 595, 732, 760, 767 capture of Fort DeRussy by, 732 early naval career of, 525–526 involvement in Farragut’s run past Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, 216, 220, 221, 224, 437, 479 involvement in Farragut’s run past Vicksburg, 723–724 as naval commander of the Red River Expedition, 526, 571, 573, 578, 579–581 passage of Vicksburg with the Mississippi Squadron, 721–722, 725, 728 respect of for Gustavus Fox, 246 seizure of cotton by during the Red River Campaign, 575–576 service in the Mexican-American War, 525 See also Fort Fisher Campaign; Fort Hindman, Battle of; Grand Gulf, Battle of; Mississippi Marine Brigade; Mississippi River Squadron; Steele’s Bayou Expedition Porter, John L., 16, 527–529, 586, 734 Porter, Thomas K., 121 Porter, William D., 31, 33, 529–530, 531 (image) Portsmouth, 147, 195, 432 Portsmouth Navy Yard, 538 Potomac, 497, 541, 542

I-20 |â•‡ Index Potomac Flotilla, 67, 539–540, 541, 603, 744, 746 Potomac River, 539, 540–541 Potter, Edward E., 448 Powell, Levin Minn, 541–542 Powhatan, 44, 231, 241, 242, 261, 331, 391, 525, 542–543, 566, 604, 615, 683 armament of, 542 specifications of, 542 Preble, 293, 523 Preble, George Henry, 543–545 President, 56, 300, 676 Price, Joseph, 299, 359, 468, 545–546 Price, Sterling, 119, 584 Prince Albert, 597 Prince Albert (consort to Queen Victoria), 377, 640, 708 Princess Royal, 303 Princeton, 180, 311, 313, 497, 506, 617, 654 Privateers, xxvi, 81, 125, 131, 152, 178, 179, 270, 289, 291, 349, 350, 459, 463, 508, 546–548, 585, 622, 661, 669, 679 See also Letters of marque and reprisal “Prize Cases,” 548–549 Protector, 549 Puritan, 154, 320, 549–550 armament of, 549 specifications of, 549 Purviance, Hugh Young, 550–551 Putnam, 131 Pyroscaphe, 653 Quaker City, 102, 103, 689 Quartermaster transports, 553 Queen of the West, 31, 33, 177, 389–390, 554, 559, 561, 729, 747 See also Queen of the West versus the Indianola Queen of the West versus the Indianola, 554–556 Quinby, 768 Racer, 666 Rachel Seaman, 607 Radford, William, 485, 557–558, 647 Rains, Gabriel J., 677 Raleigh, 174, 277, 279, 316, 439, 528, 558–559, 587, 759

Ram Fleet, U.S., 175, 234, 388, 389 (image), 398, 399, 441, 521, 559–561, 560 (image), 594, 595, 723, 594 Randolph, Victor M., 336 Rappahannock, 13, 87, 126, 187, 257, 335, 563–565, 639, 742, 762 armament of, 564 specifications of, 564 Rappahannock River, 299, 539, 540, 541 Raritan, 268, 269, 497, 762 Rattler, 98, 215, 268, 407, 617, 728, 767 Rattlesnake, 443, 765 Rawlins, John, 709 R. B. Forbes, 537 Read, Charles William, 565–567, 687, 708–709, 748 Receiving ships, 567–568 Red River, 568–569 Red River Campaign, 26, 97, 182, 197, 351, 353, 358, 407, 460, 463, 467, 512, 526, 566, 569–585, 570 (image), 572 (map), 575 (image), 672 Battle of Pleasant Hill, 579, 580 Battle of Jenkins’ Ferry, 584 Battle of Sabine Crossroads (Battle of Â�Mansfield), 579, 584 Camden Expedition of, 584 casualties of, 584 Confederate actions to impede Union naval movements, 577 damming of the Red River by Union engineers, 582–583 groundings and final destruction of the Eastport during, 576–577, 580–581 initial strategy of Union move against Shreveport, Louisiana, 569–570 numerical strength and organization of Union forces, 571 Union actions above Alexandria, 577, 578–580 Union attack on Fort DeRussy, 574 Union fleet assembled for, 573 Union navy’s role in, 570–571 Union seizure of cotton by David D. Porter, 575–576 Union ships lost during, 583–584 Red Rover, 386–387, 441 Reed, John Brahan, 500

Reliance, 299, 764 Renshaw, William B., 250–253, 255 Republic, 732–733 Resaca, 745 (image) Resolute, 218, 402, 505, 539, 614, 747 Revenue Cutter Service, U.S., 585–586 Reynolds, John G., 372 Rhind, Alexander C., 109, 110, 338 Rhode Island, 429 Richmond, CSS, 23, 57, 135, 147, 166, 209, 217, 220, 271, 293–294, 299, 309, 330, 410, 417, 419, 420, 498, 523, 524, 528, 531, 586–588, 638, 709, 710, 729, 748, 749 armament of, 587 specifications of, 587 See also Drewry’s Bluff, First Battle of Richmond, U.S., 588–589, 723 Richmond, Virginia, xxvii, 29, 259, 316, 418, 589–591, 620 evacuation of, 30 as the leading manufacturing center of the South, 590 transformation of during the Civil War, 590 Ringgold, Cadwalader, 591–592 Rio Grande River, xxv River Queen, 229, 284 Riverine warfare, 592–596 Battle of Memphis, 594–595 Union attack on Fort Henry, 593–594 Roanoke, 67 (image), 277, 321, 349, 375, 522, 557, 596–598, 604 armament of, 596, 597 specifications of, 596, 597 Roanoke Island, Battle of, 20, 360, 439, 484, 598–601 Union attacks on Fort Huger and Fort Forrest, 599–600 Roanoke River, xxix, 16, 21, 22 Robert E. Lee, 758, 759. See also Fort Donelson Roberts, Marshall O., 652 Rochambeau, 162 Rodgers, C. R. P., 537 Rodgers, John, 24, 40, 95, 185, 196, 250, 350, 535, 537, 593, 601–603, 714, 746, 747, 749 acquisition of “timberclads” by, 697–698 actions of in attacking Charleston, 107, 108–109

Indexâ•‡ | I-21 actions of in the First Battle of Drewry’s Bluff, 158–160 and the establishment of the Mississippi River Squadron, 404–405 Roe, F. A., 21 Romeo, 291, 767 Roosevelt, Theodore, 365 Rootes, Thomas R., 209, 638 Rosecrans, William, 99 Ross, Leonard F., 767, 768 Rowan, Stephen Clegg, 174, 175, 475, 603–605, 604 (image), 714 as commander of the Pawnee, 603 Russell, John, 3 Russian Baltic Fleet, 605–606 Rutledge, John, 102 S. Bayard, 767 Sabine, 4, 591 Sabine Pass, First Battle of, 607–608 Sabine Pass, Second Battle of, 608–610 Sachem, 609, 610 Sackets Harbor Naval Station, 610 Sacramento, 45, 121, 133, 664, 742 Saginaw, 369, 615, 739 Saint Philip, 652 Sally Wood, 514, 515 Sam Kirkman, 514 Sampson, 614 Samson, 559, 561 Samuel Orr, 513 San Francisco, 740 San Jacinto, 36, 58, 377, 640, 690, 707, 708, 757 San Juan, 652 Sands, Benjamin Franklin, 611–612 Sands, Joshua, 198 Sangamon, 502 Santa Rosa Island, Battle of, 231–232 Santee, 171, 286 Saranac, 342, 522, 690 Saratoga, 260, 344 Sassacus, 17, 21 Satellite, 674 Saugus, 166, 207, 711, 745 (image) Savannah, 306, 316, 363, 392, 408, 528, 587, 614, 653, 691 crew of branded as “pirates,” 547

I-22 |â•‡ Index Savannah, Georgia, 39, 65, 68, 72, 101, 104, 188, 258, 315, 332, 460, 553, 612, 613, 614, 646, 662, 665, 746, 749 Savannah II, 614 Savannah River, 132, 316, 493, 612–613 Savannah River Squadron, 613–614 Schimmelfenning, Alexander, 666 Schneck, James Findlay, 551, 614–615 Schofield, John McAllister, 200, 760–761 Sciota, 217, 220, 224, 723 Scofield and Markham Gate City Iron Works, 616 Scorpion, 318, 330, 341, 650, 710 Scotland, 72 Scott, Winfield, 5, 25, 95, 240, 241, 352, 592, 652, 672 See also Anaconda strategy (“Anaconda Plan” or “Scott’s Anaconda”) Scourge, 719 Screw propellers, 616–617 Sea Bird, 174, 439 Sea King, 628, 740 Seaver, James T., 423 Sebago, 645 Selfridge, Thomas, O., 24, 91–92, 268, 467, 574, 580, 619–620 Selma, 417, 639 Selma Naval Gun Foundry (Selma Foundry Works), 315, 620–621, 670 Seminole, 99, 417, 419, 536, 625, 645 Semmes, Raphael, xxix, 7, 8, 10, 11–12, 14, 18, 85, 89, 126, 185, 259, 335, 356, 410, 458, 459, 522, 563, 621–624, 622 (image), 683, 762 early career of, 621 service in the Mexican-American War, 621–622 success of as a commerce raider, 622–623, 684 Seneca, 226, 431, 505, 536 Seven Days’ Campaign, 47 Seven Pines, Battle of, 187 Seward, William H., 66, 241, 284, 377, 391, 525, 640 duplicitous actions of, 242 Sewell’s Point, Virginia, U.S. Navy shelling of, 624–625 Shark, 336

Sharp, William, 625–626 Shaw, Robert Gould, 435 Shelby Iron Company, 626–627 Shenandoah, xxvi, xxx, 87, 126, 127, 263, 369, 459, 460, 628–630, 629 (image), 669, 739–741 armament of, 628 capture of Union ships by, 740 specifications of, 628 Shepperd, Francis E., 710 Sherman, William Tecumseh, xxx, 26, 44, 101, 114, 115, 199, 238, 292, 405, 414–415, 448, 526, 571, 595, 613, 614, 647, 691, 721, 761 actions of during the Steele’s Bayou Expedition, 656–657 See also Vicksburg Campaign Shiloh, Battle of, 55, 204, 274, 327, 350, 386, 405, 466, 594, 634, 715 casualties of, 518 Ship Island, Mississippi, 65, 219, 271, 393, 542, 632–634, 723, 725 Shipboard life, 630–632 alcohol on board, 631–632 food on board, 631 problem of theft on board, 632 problem of vermin on board, 631 routine activities aboard ship, 630 training and practice with weapons and naval guns, 630 See also Food/drink/rations, aboard ship Shirk, James W., 514, 634–635 Shokokon, 136, 651 Shubrick, William Bradford, 344, 450, 635–637 Side-wheelers, 637–638 Signal, 162–163, 291, 573, 583, 767 Signal Hill Fire Support Mission, 638 Simms, Charles Carroll, 174, 444, 638–639 Sinclair, Arthur, 396–397 Sinope, Battle of, 38 S. J. Waring, 132 Slemmer, Adam, 231 Slidell, John, 3, 244, 565, 639–641, 707–708, 757 role of in the Trent affair, 639, 640 Sloat, John D., 344, 432, 635 Smalls, Robert, 6, 641–642, 641 (image) Smith, Albert N., 224

Smith, Andrew Jackson, 571, 583 Smith, Caleb, 241 Smith, Charles F., 204, 211, 212 Smith, E. Kirby, 466, 569, 573, 577, 584 Smith, Francis Pettit, 616, 654 Smith, Joseph, 161, 312, 549, 642–643 Smith, Joseph Bryant, 279, 643–644, 645 Smith, Leon, 251 Smith, Martin L., 724 Smith, Melancton, 21, 22, 531 Smith, Sidney, 185 Smith, Walter W., 178 Smith, Watson, 767, 768 Smith, William, 644–645 Somers, 309, 622, 739 South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, xxix, 40, 67, 140, 143, 226, 237, 305, 338, 431, 435, 473, 503, 537, 551, 646–648, 650, 677, 712 amphibious operations of, 646 area of coverage by, 646 South Carolina, 23 Southfield, 17, 19, 21 Southampton, 433 Spanish Fort, 444, 445 Spar torpedoes, 17–18, 19, 200, 648–649 Spark, 676 Spence, Edward Lee, 298 Sphinx, 88, 318, 663 Spitfire, 690 Sprowle, Andrew, 482 Spuyten Duyvil, 711 Squadrons, 650 Squib, 147, 200, 395–396, 650–651 specifications of, 650 torpedo armament of, 650 Squibb, E. R., 383–384 St. Clair, 573 St. Lawrence, 259, 277, 286, 550, 551, 615 St. Louis, 170, 203, 211, 212, 309, 380, 388, 437 (image), 456, 522, 755 See also Baron de Kalb St. Mary’s, 45, 529, 626 St. Nicholas, 300 St. Patrick, 680 St. Philip, 768 Staerkodder, 663 Stanton, Edwin M., 177, 388, 399, 559 Star of the West, 652, 743

Indexâ•‡ | I-23 State of Georgia, 36, 544 Steam Picket Boat No. 1, 18, 19, 137 Steam propulsion, 653–655 and compound engines, 653 improvements to, 653–654 Steamships, 64–65 number of steam warships in the U.S. Navy, 655 Steele, Frederick, 571, 584 Steele’s Bayou Expedition, 655–658, 730–731 Steiner, J. H., 47 Stellwagen, Henry S., 102 Stembel, Rodger Nelson, 519, 658–659 Stephens, Alexander H., 284 Stephenson, John A., 218, 219, 368 Stepping Stone, 651 Stern-wheelers, 659 Stevens, Henry K., 32, 56 Stevens Battery, 312, 660 cost of, 660 specifications of, 660 Stewart, Charles, 636, 660–662, 661 (image) Stockton, Robert F., 180, 506, 507, 616, 635 Stone Fleets, 646, 662–663 Stono River Expedition, 665–667 Stonewall, 54, 88, 133, 147, 218, 261, 318, 402, 663–665, 664 (image), 745 (image) ramming of the Varuna, 225 Strategy, naval. See Confederacy, naval strategy of; United States, naval strategy of Stribling, Cornelius Kincheloe, 172, 675–676, 697 Stringham, Silas H., xxv–xxvi, 25, 41, 53–54, 289, 346, 392, 603, 676–677 Stromboli, 712, 742 Strong, James H., 424 Sub Marine Explorer, 680 Submarine Battery Service, 677–679 Submarine No. 7, 61 conversion of to the Benton, 170 Submarines, xxix, 169, 192, 270, 304, 476, 569, 573, 670, 679–681 See also H. L. Hunley; Pioneer; Submarine Battery Service; Submarine No. 7 Sullivan, James, 474 Sultana, 119, 681–682, 682 (image) Sumner, Charles, 10

I-24 |â•‡ Index Sumter, 24, 34, 36, 134, 371, 389, 459, 460, 495, 522, 523, 543, 588, 683–684, 707 armament of, 683 as a commerce raider, 622–623 specifications of, 683 Sumter, Thomas, 234 Supply, 525, 741 Surdam, David G., 70 Susquehanna, 23, 261, 274, 289, 290, 300, 336, 343, 535, 536, 684–685 armament of, 684 specifications of, 684 “Swamp Angel,” the, 436 Switzerland, 559, 561 Symonds, T. E., 687 Tacony, 566, 592, 687 Tallahassee, 112, 113, 126, 261, 687–689, 759 armament of, 688 specifications of, 688 Tallahatchee, 573 Talomico, 614 Tappan, James C., 59 Tattnall, Josiah, 331, 458, 534, 536, 537, 542, 690–691, 736 Taylor, Richard, 573, 574, 575, 579 Taylor, Zachary, 268–269, 751 T. D. Horner, 559, 561 Teaser, 48, 147, 277, 330, 749 Tecumseh, 23, 132, 134, 135, 417, 419, 420, 691–693, 692 (image), 703 armament of, 692 operations of in the Battle of Mobile Bay, 692–693 specifications of, 691–692 See also Mobile Bay, Battle of Tender vessels, 693–694 Tennessee, xxvii Tennessee, xxviii, xxix, 85–86, 87, 135, 184, 185, 287, 315, 316, 332, 390, 415, 417, 420, 423–425, 528, 621, 692 (image), 693, 694–695, 694 (image) armament of, 694 specifications of, 694 See also Mobile Bay, Battle of Tennessee River, xxvii, 26, 399, 512, 695–696 See also Fort Henry, Battle of

Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), 696 Terry, Alfred Howe, 27, 200, 207, 208, 526, 761 Texas, 316, 528, 591 Thatcher, Henry Knox, 186, 412, 426, 445, 495, 696–697, 753 Thayer, Sylvanus, 244 Thistle, 215 Thomas Freeborn, 505, 539, 744 Thomas L. Wragg, 443 Thompson, Jacob, 394 Tift, Asa F., 39, 188 Tift, Nelson, 39, 188 Tilghman, Lloyd, 210, 211, 212, 214 Timberclads, 26, 128, 129, 169, 203, 203 (image), 211, 212, 274, 404, 405, 512, 518, 593, 594, 602, 658, 697–698, 715 See also Belmont, Battle of Time, 514 Tinclads, 91, 189, 215, 405, 426, 578, 595, 698–699, 732 Tonnage, 699–701 Baker’s rule tonnage, 700 displacement measured in, 700 original definition of, 700 Torch, 649 Torpedo, 147, 710 Torpedoes, 107, 219, 296, 679, 701–704, 702 (image) early development of, 701–702 horological torpedoes, 118 spar torpedoes, 17–18, 19, 200, 648–649 types of, 703 use of by the Confederacy, 702 See also Coal torpedo; David Todd, A. H., 56 Tomb, James, 474 Toombs, Robert, 546 Toucey, Isaac, 5, 704–705, 743, 751, 752 Townsend, J. H., 402 Treaty of Washington (1871), 4 Tredegar Iron Works, xxv, 29, 30, 315, 458, 620, 670, 678, 680, 705–707, 706 (image), 735 slave labor at, 706, 707 types of weapons produced by, 706 Trent, 707, 708, 757

Trent Affair, the, 3, 154, 160, 244, 320, 352, 376, 377, 511, 544, 639, 640, 707–708 Trent’s Reach, Battle of, 708–712 Confederate objectives, 709 Confederate ships involved in, 709 role of Union batteries during, 710 Union ships involved in, 709 Triton, 546 Triumph, 188 Tucker, John Randolph, 89, 102, 159, 330, 691, 712–713 Turner, Thomas, 604, 713–714 Turtle, 616 Tuscaloosa, 185, 317, 415, 417 Tuscarora, 134, 293 Tuscumbia, 265, 266, 634, 722 Tybee Island, Georgia, 613, 614, 646, 663 Tyler, 31, 33, 59, 60, 128–129, 169, 203, 211, 215, 274, 292, 350, 404, 512, 513, 514, 515, 518, 593, 594, 696, 698, 714–715, 741 reinforcement of with heavy guns and oak plating, 714–715 specifications of, 715 Tyler, Henry, 372 Tyler, John, 122, 506 Unadilla, 200, 536 Uncle Ben, 610 Underwriter, 27, 299, 359, 764 Confederate expedition against, 471–472, 717–718 Union, 762 United States, 132, 543, 567, 626, 660 United States, naval strategy of, 671–675 blockade strategy of, 672, 673–674 effective navy-army cooperation, 674 increased growth in both ships and naval personnel, 671–672 Lincoln’s limited role in, 672 priority of in securing ships, 672–673 See also Anaconda strategy (“Anaconda Plan” or “Scott’s Anaconda”) Upper Mississippi Flotilla, 32 Upshurm Abel, 506 Valley City, 174–175

Indexâ•‡ | I-25 Van Brunt, Gershom Jaques, 719–720 Van Buren, Martin, 750 Vance, Zebulon, 113, 688 Vandalia, 67 (image), 345, 346, 374, 534, 536 Vanderbilt, 510, 535, 720–721 armament of, 720 specifications of, 720 Varuna, 217, 220, 222, 224 ramming of by the Stonewall Jackson, 225 Vermont, 567, 591–592 Verne, Jules, 680 Vesuvius, 741 V. H. Ivy, 547 Vicksburg, Mississippi, xxvii, xxviii, 26, 32–33, 265 Mississippi Squadron passage of, 721–723 West Gulf Squadron passage of, 723–724 See also Chickasaw Bluffs, Battle of; Vicksburg Campaign Vicksburg Campaign, 703, 724–734, 726 (map) Bedford’s attacks on Union supply lines, 727 capture and destruction of the Indianola by the Confederates, 729 casualties of, 733 Confederate capture of Grant’s supply base at Holly Springs, 728 Grant’s crossing the Mississippi River at Bruinsburg, 731–732 Grant’s march down the Louisiana side of the Mississippi River, 731 Grant’s siege of Vicksburg, 732, 733 Halleck’s refusal to support Farragut in his run past Vicksburg, 724, 726 Steele’s Bayou Expedition to secure the Yazoo River entrance, 655–658, 730–731 Union attack on Port Hudson, 729–730 West Gulf Squadron passage of Vicksburg by Farragut, 723–724, 725–727 Yazoo Pass Expedition attempt to take Vicksburg from the east, 52, 730 See also Chickasaw Bluffs, Battle of; Hayne’s Bluff, Mississippi, Union demonstration at Victor, 563, 564 Villepigue, John B., 233 Vincennes, 45, 133, 293, 294, 523, 524, 756 Vindicator, 561, 619

I-26 |â•‡ Index Virginia, xxvi, xxvii, xxviii, 24, 38, 76, 79, 85, 89, 147, 161, 174, 185, 198–199, 246, 264, 278 (image), 284, 311, 314, 316, 333, 349, 367, 371, 381, 395, 453, 460, 483, 507, 522, 604, 619, 625, 639, 669, 670, 673, 691, 706, 712, 734–737, 735 (image) armament of, 277, 735 battle with the Monitor, 281–283, 428–429, 463–464, 480, 736, 765 construction of, 314–315, 734–735 problems with, 315 sinking of the Congress by, 643–644 sinking of the Cumberland by, 177, 375, 557, 559 See also Hampton Roads, Battle of; Merrimack Virginia II, 166, 209, 316, 330, 410, 586–587, 638, 709, 710, 711 Virginius, 137 Vixen, 744 Wabash, 23, 53, 289, 290, 391–392, 534, 535, 536–537 Wachusett, 121, 191, 408, 511, 645 Waddell, James I., 127, 458, 459, 498, 628, 739–741 Walke, Henry, 96, 327, 732, 741–742 Walker, 23 Walker, John, 574, 575 Walker, Leroy Pope, 243 Walker, William Sparhawk, 742–743 Wamsutta, 666 Ward, 370 Ward, James Harmon, 192, 603, 743–745 Ward, William H., 113, 688 Ware, Horace, 626–627 Warley, Alexander, 222, 223, 224, 225, 293, 368, 369, 368 Warner, 162 Warren, 262, 306 Warrior, 218, 402 Washington, 497 Washington Navy Yard, 745–746, 745 (image) Wasp, 614, 635, 650, 709 Wassaw Sound, Battle of, 746–747 Water Witch, 157, 293, 523, 545, 614, 636 Watmough, Pendleton, 102–103 Watson, Baxter, 296

Watson, John C., 419 Webb, 566, 589, 747–749 armament of, 748 specifications of, 748 Webb, William Augustine, 160, 749–750 Webster, Daniel, 3 Weehawken, 40, 107, 108–109, 110, 238, 431, 435, 436, 502, 503, 602, 614, 647, 746–747, 749 Welles, Gideon, xxv, xxix, 5, 18, 25, 40–41, 43, 53, 64, 65, 83, 104, 106, 121, 133, 137, 161, 187, 194, 241, 245, 271, 312, 353, 372, 391, 393, 447, 461–462, 476, 485, 510, 522, 525, 544, 549, 593, 604, 645, 646, 647, 662, 697, 723, 750–753, 751 (image), 757 condition of the U.S. Navy when he took office, 751–752 conflict with Seward, 242 criticism of, 464 decision to replace Flag Officer Du Pont with Rear Admiral Foote, 111, 196 dismissal of Charles S. McCauley, 482 dismissal of Charles Wilkes, 720 dismissal of James Waddell, 739 dislike of John A. Dahlgren, 140 establishment of the Mississippi River Squadron, 404 high opinion of Samuel F. Du Pont, 164 meeting with James Buchanan Eads, 169–170 neglect of riverine warfare by, 592 political career of, 750–751 problems faced by as secretary of the navy, 752 reliance on Gustavus Fox, 246 See also Confederacy, blockade of; Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s run past West Gulf Blockading Squadron, xxvii, 26, 32, 41, 46, 58, 67, 81, 116, 158, 172, 184, 219, 266, 271, 272, 346, 369, 382, 396, 410, 434, 476, 477, 495, 509, 544, 656, 692, 753–754 passage of Vicksburg by, 723–724 See also Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, Farragut’s run past West India Squadron, 508 West Point Foundry, 499

Western Gunboat Flotilla. See Mississippi Squadron Westfield, 250, 251, 252, 253, 255, 723 Whelan, William, 302 Whig Party, 3 Whisper, 759 White Oak Swamp, Battle of, 29 White River Expedition, 754–756 casualties of, 755 Whitehead, 21 Whitney, Charles W., 337, 338 Whitney, William C., 490 Wilkes, Charles, 22, 353, 707–708, 720, 756–758, 757 (image) as a global explorer, 756 Wilkinson, John, 113, 688, 689, 758–760 success of as a blockade runner, 758–759 William H. Brown, 570 (image) William H. Webb, 555 William Putnam, 709 Williams, John, 382 Williams, Thomas, 32, 55, 267, 723, 725 Wilmington, 316, 528 Wilmington, North Carolina, xxix, xxx, 26, 65, 68, 72, 73, 113, 205, 208, 460, 484, 485, 558, 611, 668, 688, 689, 747 engagements at, 760–761 See also Fort Anderson and Wilmington, North Carolina, Union operations against; Fort Fisher Campaign Wilson, James H., 621, 767 Wilson’s Creek, Battle of, 385 Winder, John H., 179 Winkler, R. T. G., 382

Indexâ•‡ | I-27 Winnebago, 170, 322, 417, 419, 420, 421, 692 (image) Winona, 217, 220, 224, 723 Winslow, 54 Winslow, John Ancrum, xxix, 13, 16, 763–763, 762 (image) Wise, Henry A., 599 Wissahickon, 217, 220, 224, 226, 227, 431, 477, 723 Withenbury, Wellington W., 576, 577, 578 Wivern, 318, 341 Wood, John Taylor, 299, 471–472, 717, 763–764 Woodford, 577 Wool, John E., 228 Worden, John Lorimer, 226, 428, 431, 764–766, 765 (image) Wyalusing, 21, 22 Wyoming, 137 Yates, Richard, 95 Yazoo City Navy Yard, 733 Yazoo Pass Expedition, 52, 730, 767–768 Yazoo River, 32, 33, 83, 291, 358, 655, 656, 727, 769 See also Chickasaw Bluffs, Battle of York, 262 York River, xxvii, 540, 645 Yorktown, 57, 374, 445–446, 497 Young America, 508 Young Virginia, 587 Zeilin, Jacob, 372, 373, 374 Zouave, 279, 599

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